I had some time to write more about Vang Vieng so please read on!....

Vang Vieng is a small town with one main road and surounded by beautiful limestone mountains, green rice patties, grass hut villages and crystal clear streems with homemade bamboo bridges across them! It has become a fairly touristy backpacker hang out (especially with Isrealis >:( )which was a dissapointment but it was definately worht going there.

Since it is full of backpakers, there are plenty of pizza places (strangely) and most bars and restaurants have lounge style dining completely with movies to watch while you are stoned. :) I didn't have any interest in doing that since there were plenty of things to do outside instead of vegging in front of a TV.

Beautiful mountain side villages and small crystal clear streams....

Water buffalo and amazing limestone mountains...

The main market area of Vand Vieng...

Handmade bamboo bridges everywhere...

The first night we were there we were walking through the night market and were a little disapointed because it was mostly tourist junk and nothing very interesting. We eventually made out way in back of the night market building and found the local market which proved to be VERY interesting. I've seen many fried bugs and scorpians in Thailand and I even saw fried tarantulas in Cambodia but I was pretty grossed out by this market!
I didn't get any pictures of these but the list of disgusting creatures is as follows:
Termite eggs (complete with some hatched flying termites crawling all over the eggs)
baby frogs and bugs mixed together in bowls (still alive)
Rats being chopped up
Civit cats (dog sized animals that are believed to be a spreader of SARS)
and skinned bats

Neeless to say I have been very careful about what I eat here.

The next day we did a tour that took us into a couple of caves and some villiages at the base of some of those mountains. The caves were interesting because these aren't like the cave tours in the US were the path is well lit. Kate, our guide and I were the only ones in them and we only had one flashlight! Very creepy since it was pitch black except for our little light.
Here are some stalagmites (or stalagtites)

The second cave we went to was a water cave. We got to take inner tubes into the cave with flashlights and once it got shallow enough, we got out and waked through some very small spaces into huge rooms with streams of water flowing through them.
After the caves we walked along the mountains and walked through some traditional Mong villages. I've never been stared at so much in my life. Everytime we passed a group of kids they would stop talking and just stare at us with their mouths wide open. We even made a little baby cry every time he looked at us. :) We also saw a little boy about 2 or 3 in the distance. He was naked and when he saw us he started to run like hell! lol! He didn't stop running until he was out of site but the whole time he looked back at us with the most horrified look on his face! Very funny.

It was extremely hot and after the hours of walking we took some tubes down the river which was very appreciated. The river was pretty clean and clear most of the trip but by the time we got close to town I was ready to get out!
The next day we left for Luang Prabang and the ride there was amazing. We road through village after village on some incredibly beautiful mountains. If you cannot tell already, the key word for my experience in Laos so fars is "beautiful!"

I have seen some of the cutest babies in Asia. I don't know what it is but they are adorable! Here is one cute baby out of hundreds that I've seen.

The kids here are amazing too. They are so well behaved and independant. It is not uncommon to see a baby about 2 years old riding between the legs of it's parent on a scooter flying down the road. They just STAND there and balance while holding on to the handle bars! A kid that age in the US would probably jump off the bike imediately. I've also seen babys holding on to their mother's backs sitting behind them on a bike. They seem to be born with perfect balance.
I also saw a 2 year old boy naked, crowching playing with a sharp knife trying to cut a twig! Nobody was watching him but he seemed to handle the knife just fine.