We returned to Vientiane for one more day, again passing through to take the overnight train back to Bangkok.
We escaped the heat in the town market, which turned out to be a mall and also turned out to have stores selling DVDs of Korean pop star performances.
Go hallyu!
Vang Vieng surprised us. Other travelers were more blasé, declaring it prettier up North, but we thought Vang Vieng was the bees knees anyhow.
And yes, we rode the inner tubes down the river.
From Luang Prabang we took a bus to Vang Vieng. It wound through the mountains passing many villages. I tried to take pictures of the locals from the moving vehicle, wondering about them, and wondering what they thought of us, too.
We took a boat along the Mekong to a cave housing many Buddha sculptures, waded along the edge of a waterfall, and visited a Hmong village. A Korean was part of the group, and he demonstrated his instant camera to some of the Hmong children.
