Scootering started a little later than anticipated, as most things do the way we go. We met up with Dara (the new Canadian girl) and a new Finnish guy (no idea what his name was anymore) and had some food, got the scooters, a horrible map, and then it was off to the first cave. We got there without incident after some practice driving on the roads first (the road to the cave is a dirt pseudo-road through fields.)
Once there, Amy decided to sit it out as it was crazy hot, and the impression we got was the cave was at the top of a really steep rocky hill. Turned out it wasn’t too far up and it was a lot of fun to explore. We then hiked the hill for the heck of it/the view and met another Canadian on top… we are everywhere over here.
Back down, after a really tough but short hike and it was off to the next cave. The map wasn’t clear and the Finnish guy had a bit too much confidence in his navigation skills so we ended up spending the rest of the day in fields driving over these huge berms getting just exhausted as the scooters would get stuck high-centering.
When we got back into town (after not finding any more caves) we just went for a ride to feel we got some real distance on the scooters. After that we checked out the bars across the river.. we figured if they were making so much noise and it was coming right into our room, we might as well be out there enjoying it. We spend a good while out there, some of it in hammocks, some by the bonfires, and eventually worked ourselves back to our room. The Laos curfew doesn’t seem to apply here in Vang Vieng.