Rather than spend time travelling to the Plain of Jars in the limited time I had left in Laos I decided to stay put in Vang Vieng. I've been here for a few days now and I'm starting to realise Vang Vieng is a great base, but its a busy resort town, with loads of guesthouses, bars, restaurants a few souvenier shops, and smattering of hotels and not much else. All the cool stuff takes a bit of effort to get to - the surrounding countryside is stunning, and there's a lot to see.
At a bit of a loss I figured I'd do more moutain biking and try and fit in a few more caves. This time armed with a decent map (you can buy them in Vang-Vieng at any place that rents bikes) I struck out west to the village of Na Thong looking for the Tham Phau Kham cave. I was taken up the mountain by a 10-year old guide called "Lu-lai". 10 years old. Seriously. I was going to do it myself but he sort of attached himself to me and wouldn't leave, suppose its always better with a bit of local knowledge. After a few 100s of meters climb/scrabble up a fairly well-worm path we got to the cave. On the way in we met an Isreali guy trying to do it with a 1-LED keyring torch. This really, really wasn't the place for it. Most of the cave seemed to be a sub-terreanean cliff face, one false move on the slippy muddy rocks and you'd be off into the black abyss below. My torch wouldn't actually get to the bottom.
Near the path on the way up to Tham Phau Kham there's a tiny restaurant/bar/somebody's house where you can grab a beer and sit by a bend in the river thats pretty decent for a swim, and ideal if you've been scrambling around the dark dirty cave in the mountain above.
Swimming near Tham Phau Kham
The cave was nothing special but what got me was our "guide". I've got an 8 year old nephew (Ronan, hope you are reading this!) I could never imagine him in a year or two doing what this wee boy was doing. The cave was the sort of thing a pot-holer would love, but it wasn't the place for a young kid to be taking tourists into. And he was fearless, No ropes, proper lights or even a hard-hat and he's jumping around this underground cliff. Nuts.
Later at the river he reappeared and starting messing with my guidebook, so we ended up playing Lao-English word games using back-of-the-guidebook phrases. That's how I got to know how old he is, what his name is, that today is Saturday, and that he has a younger sister. Oh, and I now know the words for 8000 and 12000. These are important because that usually how much beer costs in Kip. hehe.
After a view beers and a swim in the river I hopped back on my bike and made my way to the village of Naxom and found the most perfect natural spring with rope swings and trees to jump off into the really deep pool - I tried to touch the bottom and couldn't. The place is called Pou Kham (I think sometimes it also goes by the Blue Lagoon, for obvious reason); it had a few bungalows near the river and looked like an excellent place to stay for a few days - very chilled out and loads nicer than busy Vang Vieng. Awesome. I think there's a cave somewhere too but I was enjoying the water that much I couldn't really be bothered going anywhere else.
The natural spring at Pou Kham
My camera is waterproof so I've got some movies of me freefalling into the water from trees. I liked Pau Kham so much I planned to go back the next day and catch some rays but got distracted at the bar that night and missed it.