Early Morning Adventure Exploring Caves in Vang Vieng Laos! Part One
One thing you'll quickly learn in Vang Vieng Laos, is that on a sunny day, it's blistering hot in the afternoon. It's the kind of heat, humidity, and sun that zaps your strength; so I've been getting up at 5:00am and doing activities on my own. This is an early morning adventure from just the other day.
Heading out around 5:30 am while the sun is just coming up, I capture this photo demonstrating traditional Lao life along with the growing tourist industry represented by the rising hot air balloon in the background.
Happy with my real life photo I continue over the Orange Bridge, crossing the Nam Song River.
The early morning view of the mountains.
I got this photo from atop a stair case along the mountain side.
At the top this cave was inaccessible at 6am.
I soon came across this Lagoon. You can swim under the water and it opens into a cave area. 
In the same area there was a small cave with a Buddha Shrine inside. Many caves have Buddhas placed inside of them in Laos.
I soon find myself on a trail leading to this strange area. Look what I find still bedded down from the night.
I decide not to cross the bridge and see the caves along the side of the mountain.
I continue on the hardened mud trail worn down by the cows. I see an opening into the mountain but it doesn't seem like much.
I come around a corner and find myself looking right into a cave.
It's not even 7:00 am now, using my phone as a flash light I enter the cave and crawl through a long tunnel which this video leads up to.
A cave chamber opens up and I see I can go on further climbing up a broken ladder, but I felt unsafe doing so and turned back.
Feeling a little bit of claustrophobia and adrenaline, I soon see light!
The trail continues and so does this post. See part two here. 
Nice post and update. It sure is an adventure.
Thank you. Wait until you see some upcoming adventure post. I found myself in a few hairy situations last week. Going to go check out your page now.
Nice this post
Nice location, nice photos too
Great pics of the landscape.
Thanks buddy! I like your handle name much more now that you're traveling! lol :)
Loving your adventures and also your wisdom to know when to not take unnecessary risk. I'm a bit claustrophobic too, so even looking at some of those pics makes my chest tight.
Thank you! Making safe decisions will be a theme of mine. Backpacking for ten years, never had anything stolen or lost either! Hope I didn't just jinx myself! lol
Wow. That's impressive. I can't imagine 10 years of nothing lost or stolen. I would feel super lucky to go half that.
Yeah it is pretty lucky. But a lot of it has to do with avoiding shady situations and places.
And also not doing dumb stuff. Like last year when I left my phone sitting on the table at a bar while I went to go pee. Doh!
You almost like you have to train your mind to be in-tune with your surroundings and what's going on. Especially when constantly in foreign countries and foreign places.
This is so true. Sometimes I don't want to listen to that inner wisdom. I convince myself I'm being judgey. Particularly as a woman, not listening to that voice can be a terrible mistake.