Laos: Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng to The Four-Thousand Islands

The contrast between the smoggy insanity of Bangkok and the serene, picturesque Luang Prabang hit us with an audible whump. Our tiny hotel was made in an old French style, with carved wooden banisters and a quiet garden around back. The trees along the street were blooming fragrant pink flowers. Gone were the deafening drone of motorbikes and choking haze of exhaust, gone were the hawkers and the sad mini elephant that parades Kaosan Road while tourists slap its skin and take pictures. Instead we found Luang Prabang to be everything we could have wanted out of a remote fishing village. Within its few square blocks of the city center are at least five massive, ornate guilded temples, all still in use by the resident monks. The monks are young boys, all of whom must spend at least a few months of their lives living in a monestary. They wear brightly colored robes and have shaved heads, and their presence gives the town an ancient feeling, as if they could at any moment realize that they are in the year 2009 and just give up. We spent our time in Luang Prabang riding in a boat down the slow moving Mekong river to visit a waterfall, and later taking a cooking class through a local organic restaurant.
We bused down from Luang Prabang, through the magnificent limestone karst formations of southern Laos, into the growing riverside village of Vang Vieng. This town is known mainly as a place to get very drunk and float down the river in an innertube, all the while stopping at dubious ropeswings and bars blaring old 90's raprock. While the four of us did have an amazing time floating down the river and hitting the ropeswings, the entire experience felt slightly obscene...especially in contrast with Luang Prabang.
Another issue altogether was one of safety: after floating up to one of the more popular bars, we learned from some fellow tubers that not more than half an hour before, a girl had drowned at that very bar after sliding down a large waterslide. Apparently she slid under the surface and wasn't even missed until she had been under for over a minute. She was dead when they found her 15 minutes later. There are no lifeguards in Vang Vieng, and Laos is a third-world country without the resources to enforce adequate safety measures. No one knows how often people are hurt or killed at this dangerous and unregulated waterpark, but it has to be many. Thirty minutes after she was pulled from the water, we saw people still sliding down the same slide, heard the same music blaring from the bar's speakers.
We took an overnight bus down to the southern tip of Laos and the Mekong delta, where scattered across the lazy river are the famous 4000 Islands. There was not much to do in the 4000 islands aside from swing in a hammock, swim in the warm Mekong and eat freshly caught catfish, so we took advantage of the situation. George celebrated his 23rd birthday on our third night there, and we actually managed to stick a candle in a pancake and get a little party in order. We paid dearly for our insolence on an early morning busride the following day.