McDonald's Happy Meals have nothing on Vang Vieng.

  This place is famous for anything and everything that is "Happy" . Walk into any restaurant and request the special menu and you will see offers for Happy Pizza, Happy Shakes, individual joints, or full bags of opium. It appears to be a drug users paradise except for one minor kink in the system. In the evening, the police run around trying to sniff out marijuana smokers so they can issue a fine, payable immediately of course, in the amount of $500 dollars. They will gladly accompany you to the ATM machine while you collect your money. You will not get a receipt for this transaction, but you will be $500 bucks poorer.

Basically, you can order anything you like laced with marijuana or magic mushrooms for that little extra kick that is "Happy and Funny for You", as one menu I photographed said in English. How strong they are depends on who's out back making them. So if you want to spend an entire day lost in the clouds of La-La Land, have yourself a milkshake made with hallucinogenic mushrooms or a pizza with marijuana baked into the crust. I'm told it's good fun after the vomiting stops.

The other thing that makes people happy here is floating down the Nam Song river on a truck tire inner tube and visiting the various bars set up at the swimming holes and rope swings. This was a blast!  Definitely one of the most fun things I've done in a while. The local bartenders hand out free shots of Lao-Lao whiskey to build your courage and then send you out on 10 meter rope swings to drop into the water. Big time fun! I have some cool videos from the various bars of the rope swings I did. One young local, who has probably been doing this all his life, was quite acrobatic. So don't miss the videos mixed in with the photos.

I've been hanging out with two Spaniards, an Argentinian and a couple other Americans. There are lots of caves, swimming holes, and lagoons to explore in this area if you choose not to visit the dark side of the moon everyday. And the people of Laos have to be the friendliest in Asia; possibly the world. Not too many minutes go by without someone yelling "Sabadii" (hello). This place is great and high on my list of places to revisit someday. I couldn't get enough of the rope swinging!