Happy Shake Anybody?

Hi everybody,

we arrived in Vang Vieng after roughly 6 hours on a minibus from Luang Prabang. The twisty journey throughout the mountains was very fast and sickly though it offered us some of the most amazing views we have seen up to now.

Upon arrival, we followed a fellow traveller to a guest house he recommended and settled in the centre of the town. Whilst wandering around the town with an Aussie and two guys from New Zealand (that we met on the bus) we noticed rockets firing into the air, and asked a local what was going on! We found out that it was actually their annual rocket festival and rockets were being fired from an island on the river in celebration. Suzanne decided to chill out in the room for a bit so Steve headed down to the river with the other guys to check it out.

It was early afternoon and after crossing an unstable holey bamboo bridge (see pic) we were on the island and noticed a number of busy bars playing loud distorted Laos pop music. We followed the noise and there were loads of Lao teenagers dancing like crazy in bamboo shelters, mostly wearing white school shirts with slogans written on them such as 'Porn Star' and also some men in traditional womens clothes! A little further on we noticed groups of people at the river where they were letting off the rockets from bamboo launchers so decided to park down for a beer to watch and admire the mountains. Rockets were continuously being fired into the air and every now and then a group of Laos teenagers would rally past the bar with a large rocket mounted on a wooden stick and head for the river dancing and shouting!

Later on that evening Suz joined us at the after party which was by the river and consisted of a stage with a live band playing Lao music and the crowd was dancing and playing drums. We were a little concerned when the Aussie guy pointed out a group of about 7 casually dressed Laos carrying large machine guns, just wandering around the area - though we found out later that they were just police!

After the party we headed for the main street that was sadly full of 'Friends' bars (bars that continually play episodes of the sitcom - you could sit in one and hear another two blaring out different episodes at the same time), movie bars and places to eat (it felt more like a place like Tenerife than SE Asia). In addition to the standard Laos,Thai and Western dishes on offer the restaurants and bars also seemed to offer 'Happy Shakes', 'Happy Pizza' and many other 'Happy' variants that we later found out contained either weed, mushroom or opium or a combination! We didnt feel inclined to try these however some of the others enjoyed the 'happy shakes' so we left them to it!

The next day we decided to visit some local caves, we had a steep 10 minute rock climb to reach the entrance of the first one. Once up there we got great views of the surounding mountains and the actual cave was small but interesting to see. The next one we visited had a spring at the bottom of the mountain that we swam in and also went underneath the caves. The actual cave was a 5 minute walk up some stairs however we were disapointed to see it paved with lighting and a nice fence around the path inside.

We spent the following day with Kev and Emily doing the popular 'tubing' down the Nam Song river. Expecting a rollercoaster ride of rapids and speeding currents, we braced ourselves and jumped on a tractor tyre each. It started off slowly and we found ourselves enjoying the sun whilst waiting for it to pick up a little downstream. We waited...we waited and we waited. It never happened!! Probably due to the time of year. The annoying thing was that we avoided most of the river bars on the way downstream as we didnt want to be tipsy when we hit the big rapids! The Lonely Planet warns that this activity can be quiet dangerous and there has been at least one death on the river in recent years, hard to see how though.
The highlight of the day was stopping at a bar on the way down stream that had a large swing hanging from the mountain above that we sat on and two guys pulled ropes behind you and left you to swing at great heights and jump in to the refreshing river!

We felt there was not much more for us to see in Vang Vieng so along with Kev and Emily booked a bus ticket for the next day to Vientiane.

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