VangVieng, Laos - Mar 26, 2008. On his last morning in Laos before returning to Thailand for flight home, Jim was invited by his GuestHouse owner, Ap, to visit his farm about 10 km away. After a lunch of grilled fish and sticky rice, Ap guided Jim up the stream behind his fish pond to some waterfalls. Because of thick jungle, they had to wade in the stream much of the way. Even though on the way back, he slipped off some slippery rocks into a deep hole and bruised his ankle, Jim wrote, "It was a good activity for my 64th birthday." Here are photos of the jungle trek . 
while Jim pours on the charm with his James Bond routine, the neighborhood beauty queen is thinking, "This conversation isn't going anywhere." 
While back in Vientiane, Jim saw several wedding receptions as the winter months are considered auspicious times for weddings. He would wander by "when everyone was feeling no pain and somebody would wave me in to join them. The music ranged from Lao traditional to Western rock and roll. At one of the receptions, they played 'Super Freak'. A very bizzare song for a wedding, I thought."
Click here for more photos of Vang Vieng.
Now that temperatures are well into the 90s, Jim writes that he's relaxing on the balcony of one of the more high-end hotels like the Vansana VangVieng Resort above where he can find a quiet, cool spot to read.
He also visits the bar at the Babylon Guesthouse where he can access wifi. What a life. I know it's hot there now, and it sure is cold here - a difference of at least 60 degrees.
The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are. -- Samuel Johnson
Every man carries within himself a world made up of all that he has seen and loved, and it is to this world that he returns incessantly, though he may pass through, and seem to inhabit, a world quite foreign to it.
