What are days for?

Thursday 21st January 2016

Days are where we live.
So we’ve been settled in here at Lao Valhalla bungalows, just outside Vang Vieng, for nearly two weeks. It took us a couple of days to get accustomed to the noisy ATVs passing by and the sad remnants of the party-backpacker scene, but once we had forgiven this we found we like it very much.

These are ATVs (all terrain vehicles) - or go-karts!

 There’s plenty of quiet time and space and genuine Lao life going on, with a Hmong village up the road, cows grazing the rice paddies, chickens scratching in the undergrowth, children going to and from school on bicycles or on foot, stupendous sunsets, street food and friendly greetings.

This is the back garden

Beautiful light-filled bungalows. Nouth's ex, who planned them with her, came from Denmark. Hence the nordic name!

Vang Vieng riverside bars

The scenery is stunningly beautiful but difficult to capture in photos. Impossibly steep karst cliffs rise hundreds of feet above flat rice paddy river valleys. We love to wander along the dusty dirt roads in the sunshine.

One evening Nouth arranged for a traditonal dancer to entertain us.

 Keis and Ahn peeping round the corner.

 A visit to the wat in town.

There be giants...

Here they are

These monks filming their trip along the river with their smart phones amused me.

Nouth and Ahn work incredibly hard. Here they are mending the Valhalla sign.

We visited a local Permaculture project called SAE LAO for the best mixed fruit shakes after a long hot walk. A PDC course was going on so there were about 30 Permaculture students from all over the world having their lunch when we arrived.

SAE LAO Project.

Every evening as we sit in the riverside bar, three hot-air balloons take tourists over the town. I can’t resist the colours. Sometimes they dip down low, almost dunking the basket in the river, before, with a roar of gas, soaring up vertically away.

There's not as much wildlife as in Cambodia, but some spectacular spiders!

I've never seen this yellow horned spider before.

And this one seems to have mastered zigzag stitch

Every evening at 5.30 the thousands of bats that live in the mountain caves at the back of Nouth's garden stream out in a "river of bats". For a few minutes it's a spectacular sight.

Trevann waiting for the bat river.

I couldn't catch the bats on film so here's a dragonfly instead.