Travel log from Laos….
My favorite place in Laos was a small village called Mong Noi which was only accessible by boat and relied on generated electricity which was only available for four hours every day. Since it still hasn’t been exploited by floods of tourists yet, most of the attractive sites to visit are unmarked. One neat experience was exploring a cave a few of us travelers had heard about off the side of a nearby mountain. I joined a few other travelers and we ventured deep into darkness with headlamps and an assortment of cheap Asian made flashlights. The further in we entered, the longer the stalagmites stretched and the larger the bats got. As we continued onward we started to hear the sound of water in the distance. Determined to discover the source, we pushed on, lending a helping hand to one another with each slippery step. Finally, after a few hundred meters or so, we came to a river in the darkness. Beautiful pools cascaded from one another and strange prawn like creatures with glowing eyes scurried over the slippery rock.  We swam with our shoes on just in case there were water snakes or strange unknown bottom dwellers, further clambering up river with adventurous hearts. When we reached the end of the river, it became apparent that the water’s entry point was underneath a large stalagmite mound and we could venture no further.  The bats were the size of blue jays by this point and the battery life in the cheap Asian-made flashlights waned fast, so we turned around and made our way back to the entrance of the cave. We all agreed that it was one of the greatest adventures we had all experienced on our Asia trip.
C.
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