Blogs from Vang Vieng, West, Laos, Asia - page 18

Well we were expecting to feel paranoid as soon as we entered this place as we had heard lots of stories about drugs in drinks and food and it is the party place where people come to do just that, but surprisingly we only had a couple of paranoid moments! The first day we arrived we went to a local bar and ended up talking to 4 local guys; they soon invited us to drink with them; whisky lao aarrgghh!! This is when the 1st paranoid moment came when I thought that maybe the whisky was laced with something more sinister but as it is rude to refuse I went ahead and it was fine well it wasn’t but no hallucinations! We contributed beer and them more whisky and before we knew it we were quite ... read more

I was excited to go to Laos. From anyone I had talked to who had travelled SE Asia it was always quoted as a highlight. It is supposed to be a small country, full of super friendly locals, still relatively untouched by tourism, full of rain-forests and natural wonders and it is also actually one of the 20 poorest countries in the world. Getting there was an epic journey, taking 21 hours from when we left Chang Mai. 13 hours of this were spent on what can only be described as the bus from hell. It was an overnight 'vip' bus with nothing vip about it whatsoever. It wasnt just full, in fact they brought out stools so people could sit in the aisles! There were babies on board (no idea what sort of person tortures ... read more

The drive from Luang Prabang was pretty rough as we were warned. On the way there, we stopped for some lunch overlooking some of the most beautiful views. I was green at this point and drank so much salty soup with seaweed and tea that I could have floated away. Vang Vieng is backpacker’s paradise for all ages. The younger generation goes tubing. This is pretty famous internationally. I didn’t know anything about it until this trip. Basically you rent a tube and stroll down the river. Along the river there are 50 or so bars. The bars have ropes that pull you in. You can spend anywhere from 5 minutes to hours at any one bar. Some bars have huge waterslides while others have swinging Tarzan type ropes. Reminder, this river is gross and there ... read more

Here we go again: Luang Prabang - but this time for a pit stop to wash our clothes and get you guys an update on our days in the west of Laos. Next day we were off to Vang Vieng, the town mostly famous for tubing and drinking. That was not what we had in mind. Again we spend some 6 hours in the bus, for just 300 km but the scenery was truly amazing. The afternoon we checked out the town and checked in to a cheap but clean guesthouse, the cheapness had its reason: we had our room overlooking the river, however, also perfect view and entertainment by the "rockbar" just across the river, playing music so loud that we had the feeling the bar was in our room - not outside!!! At 12am ... read more

This morning I went out to try to find a sandwich for breakfast and the two closest places didn’t have sandwi ches, but the woman in the second place told me they had them at Kangaroo. Another woman offered to take me there on the back of her motorbike, so I hopped on and away we went! It was a short ride, but I thanked her and quickly went in to place my order of one chicken sandwich and one ham sandwich. I was going to buy beer, but it was cheaper at my guest house, so I decided to wait on that one. After breakfast we slowly made our way back over to the central part of the town (Jammee guest house is on the quiet, southern side) to try to find the tubes. This ... read more