Lost my soul in Vang Vieng...

As I write this the 12 seater mini bus I am in slowly makes its way along a far less than perfect 1 and a half lane road which winds its way along the mountain range to Luang Prabang in Northern Laos. In the last 4 hours of the 6 hour journey we have come close to cleaning up a dozen stray little pigs, have overtaken busses around blind corners and been only a few centimetres from falling hundreds of metres down a cliff face(fortunately Danielle has been asleep for ¾ of this journey as that is one of her bigger fears).

We are now a week into our trip and after spending 16 hours on a train, 8 or so hours on busses we are not really anywhere near our entry point to this holiday Bangkok. Bangkok was just as I expected it to be, busy, noisy, polluted, jam packed full of backpackers and package tourists taking their once yearly pilgrimage to drink plenty of booze and eat as much as they can. For this reason within half a day of being there Danielle and I had dreams of floating down the Nam Song river in Vang Vieng, Laos for New Years Day and a couple of enquires at travel agencies had us booked on the first sleeper train to Nong Khai on the Thai/Laos border.

The sleeper train was a blast and we had a lot of fun playing games with a very inquisitive and intelligent 4 year old Thai girl who was fascinated by our camera (This same camera is now completely broken and no photos have been taken in a number of days but unfortunately I can't blame it on the kid). We were lucky to meet a Canadian lad named Connor who had the same dreams of a Vang Vieng NYE so immediately we had acquired our first travel buddy. Knowing how easy it is to get stuck in VV we chose the wise option of a couple of nights in the capital of Laos Vientiane which also gave us time to visit the national museum and gain a much clearer understanding of this amazing and at times completely unfortunate country. To top off our short stay in the nations capital we had possibly the best meal of our life after visiting the night markets (9 or so dishes for about AU$4).

The next morning we were up bright and early to catch a bus to one of our favourite places on earth so far. VV sits on the banks of a gorgeous river and at the foot of a surreal limestone mountain range which takes your breath away. It does carry a large stigma of being a trashy backpacker town and the truth is that it really is but honestly for the next couple of years I am really just another trashy backpacker. VV is just too much fun with plenty of adventurous things to do during the day such as caving and rock climbing or you can take the more simply and preferable in my mind approach and spend the days floating down river with a bottle of beer lao in hand, pulling in at the many bars with monstrous rope swing which would not come close to meeting Australian occupational health and safety standards.

The thing that is most appealing about VV is how easy it is to make mates in this place. Last time we were there we picked up some really good friends that I think we will keep for a long while and once again we met some freaking awesome people. NYE was spent first floating downstream once more and then on to a bar in town where a promoter we had been chatting with was working and giving out free shots all night. After realising that we had missed the australian new years we started hitting the turps hard and we both we honestly shitfaced and dead to the world somewhere between 10 and 11. Being in bed so early does of course have its perks and by midday we were once again floating downstream with a group of 'tubers' which had formed over the last few days partying long into the evening finishing up with a well wicked indian meal and a 5 guitar jam session at one of the groups places.

We booked up to get out of town first thing the following morning as we didn't want to become one of the alcoholic zombies of VV that you see wandering the streets of the town at all hours of the day and night. Next stop is Luang Prabang for a bit before taking the 2 day slow boat up to Chang Rai.
Big ups to Connor, Teagan, Shawn, Eliza, Liam, Ian, Alex, Katie, Lewis and Charlotte and anyone else we spent the last few days partying with. We both had an awesome time hanging out with you.

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