Dinosaurs, Monkeys and caves oh my!

What did you do with your presidents day holiday? Perhaps some of you hit the sales in the states, or others lounged around a pool with a day off...well, we hit the road!

We were really hoping to go to the annual elephant festival, but since Mike was traveling with the Ambassador until the night before, we decided 9+hours in the car headed north with everyone else headed to the same place, plus no where to stay but a possible homestay (with 3 kids) it just wasn't worth it. Instead we headed South!

Our first stop was Thakek for lunch and CAVES! Have you heard me rant about Thakek before, why yes you have! And this time was 10,000X better.

We visited 2 caves, both of which Lonely Planet will tell you are the same, neither are the same.

The first cave we visited - called Elephant Cave, for supposedly having an elephant born in the cave - had tons of Buddha images everywhere and was pretty much just a walk to the top of a huge hill and then seeing some bats and smelling pee.

The second cave we visited, Maggie proclaimed, was the most beautiful place she's been to. I can't recall the name, but it was really awesome. Very similar to several caves in Virginia, but it had pink, purple and yellow lighting everywhere and NO barriers. You could climb and touch anything you wanted, but my American-rule-abiding-motherly ways die hard and I did not let Finn climb any rock surface he saw, till Maggie decided she needed to pee within 5 minutes of us getting to the top of the cave, and I'm sure Mike probably let Finn explore the way boys do. Alas no photos of either cave...

After cave hopping, we got back into the car and headed down to Savannakhet, which is a pretty large Lao city, home to Savahn Vegas, a large casino, and DINOSAURS. Anyone with a 5-year-old boy knows this is the best kind of trip to take. In the middle of town there is a roundabout with a grassy hill and two very large Dinosaurs. The kids were in heaven climbing on them.

The Dinosaur museum itself is very small, with cases of bones and pictures of dig sites where French paleontologists worked in 5 different areas to unearth bones. The actual bones of a very large dino they've found  have not  been fully put together, because, from what we were told, they haven't fully figured out how to piece it together. Although, there is not much to see and can be a bit of a downer for a young kid looking to see tons of dinosaurs, the staff are very happy to talk about everything they know and answer any questions. It was, in my opinion, treasure for Mike, since he could easily switch from Lao to English with our guide and gets tons of information. Below is a picture of Finn and Maggie "holding" the unfinished dino, which is strung out with lights and fragments of bone hanging on the wall to show how it might look.

Once we finished at the Dinosaur museum we hit the road in search of the Monkey Forrest.It was a long drive, but well worth it. The kids got to feed greedy little monkeys to their hearts content and more importantly, I LOVED it. I'm such a kid sometimes. Mike made lots of fun of me since I was so much more enthusiastic than the kids, but I thought it was the coolest. Tess on the other hand didn't quite like the fact that even though she offered a monkey her banana, he took it!

Maggie loved it!

Even farm kids in Laos have some style, reminds me of "Outsiders". Hanging out feeding the monkeys junk food. 

Her you go monkey...wait he just took my banana!!

Then we went home and it was AWESOME!