kayaking the Nam Song River!

As I'd mentioned before, steve and I both agreed to not participate in the rift-raft tubing adventure (or should I say laze).
Rather we booked ourselves a guide and decided to paddle 20kms of the nam song instead.
I was SO happy that we decided to do this.
Our instructors name was A (this can't possibly be his real name), and he was pretty cute. At first he was a little shy getting to know us, but by the end of the day we were joking around and teasing one another. It was an awesome day.
We started the day bright and early (8 o'clock). We boarded a tuk tuk which drove us through the country side of vang vieng. This is by far the most beautiful scenery we've had. Giant mountains covered in a thick green forest line the riverside. They are tall enough for the white fluffy clouds to linger at their peaks. I must have taken two million photos this day- but not one of them captured the epicness of what was actually in front of us.
At any rate- we drove to the launch point and before we knew it we were officially paddling the nam song.
The funny thing here is that you're allowed to do some risky-ish things without any guidance or safety lessons. Steve and I were tacking rapids and bashing into rocks left right and centre. A would just smile at us and after bumping to a few himself we would carry on.
It probably sounds like we are total amateurs here...but ill have you know there are a million rocks everywhere. I would defy someone to paddle the river and not hit a few here and there!
Anyways, after our first 5 km, we stopped at the side of the river and A guided us through a farm and field to a cave.
It seems like we explore a lot of caves here doesn't it?...
At any rate, this cave was filled with water, so to explore it you hoped onto an inner tube and pulled yourself through it with a rope and head lamp.
It was pretty neat. A kept teasing me that there were spiders, snakes and lizards ready to chomp you at any moment- and he thought it was pretty funny to get a rise out of us.
After we pulled ourselves through the cave A barbecued us up a delicious lunch.
We ate and talked for a while and then headed out again.
Our next stop was elephant cave. I thought of Tash for this, because by some stroke of luck, the rocks had made what appeared to be an elephant guarding the cave. It was so cool to see! This cave was really small, pretty much just a big opening with the elephant and a million Buddhas. A told us the story behind the cave though, and it was interesting to learn why the cave had both an owl and a hare at the entrance. Come to think of it I had seen this before. Apparently they are placed at the entrance of cave to catch any evil animals that could potential enter and mar it (rats and bats and snakes...).

We walked back through the farm- which I thought was pretty neat but both A and steve laughed at me because of- and we were back in our kayaks. Now it was another 15 kms to home.
It was really nice to paddle along the river and luckily we had a somewhat overcast day- so the sun wasn't as hot as normal.
Here and there we stopped to either explore the river shore or jump in for a swim.
At one point we stopped right below this bamboo bridge that hung some 20-25 feet in the air.
Steve- being used to heights decided to give it a go. This was one sketchy bridge. About 3/4 of the way over they stopped laying bamboo to walk along and just had two tiny cables to walk (or should I say tight rope walk) on to get to the other side.
I wasn't as brave as steve and got way to nervous of falling about a quarter of the way through. Yikers!
I know now I don't like heights.
Steve did admit that it was the scariest thing he'd ever walked on. It was swaying the hole time and pieces of bamboo were breaking off here and there leaving giant holes in the middle of the bridge. It definitely wasn't passing any canadian safety standards.
We were almost home- and in the final 3kms of our paddle we passed the many tubing tourists floating down the river (at a snails pace (the river was very low). As we passed them A was laughing and shaking his head. In that moment I was so happy I was in a kayak and not a tube!
It was an awesome day, and we ended up learing about Lao culture and meeting a new friend.
We got some dinner after our kayak, walked around the town a little and that was that.

We woke up the next morning, packed our bags, and planned on departing that evening.
We decided to have a lazy day and get our very first massages! We were both very excited for this, as we had only heard good things. It was interesting indeed. The traditional Lao massage involves a lot of slapping and punching... I definitely was not expecting this. They also used about an entire bottle of oil on both steve and I. We were so slippery by the time we were done. I think the two ladies knew it was our first time getting massages because we both let out a few chuckles and so did they! It was relaxing at the end of the day though- so that was nice.
After massages we  hiked to another lagoon only a few kilometers from our hotel. This was another cool dip and a chance for us to wash all the oil of us!
We hung around the lagoon for a couple hours (which was attached to yet another cave to explore), and then headed back into town to grab some food before leaving.
Of course during our dinner the biggest storm I'd ever witnessed happened- it lasted for over an hour. All the lights went off and it sounded as though the thunder was right on top of us. The restaurant had no walls and a straw roof, so the rain was pouring in. The owner had set up a couple candles for light and we all huddled in the middle of the room until the storm passed.
Coincidentally where we ate was also where we purchased our bus ticket to Luang Prabang. They kindly informed us that the roads would be to dangerous to drive on, and we should rather leave the next day.
So I guess we were another night in Vang Vieng. This place just can't get rid of us.