Tubing in Vang Vien

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Dear All,

Very sorry it has been a while since our last post!

We are still in Laos and have moved up from the capital to spend two days in Vang Vien before ending up in Luang Prabang, where we are staying until Thursday. So I don't bombard you, I will do two seperate posts for the last few days as we have done so much!

After a very uncomfortable bus journey from Vientiene, where we realised the improtance of travel sickness tablets, we arrived in Vang Vien on Friday. It is a town on the edge of the Mekong River that has been totally transformed to cater for the western tourist. Every bar is playing Friends on repeat and the traditional Laos dishes had disappeared from all menus and I found myself eating a burger and drinking a G and T within minutes of arriving!

The big..and slightly dangerous...attraction for travellers is the tubing here. This consists of hiring a large rubber ring and being driven by Tuk Tuk about 3km up river. From here, you are left to float back to Vang Vien, stopping at the riverside bars along the way.

We decided to try this on Saturday and arrived at the first bar at 1230. All of the bars are within meters of each other and all are offering free shots and playing dance music...it was a lot of fun! When you decide to move on to the next bar you just have to float in your ring until the next bar throws you a line and pulls you in.

We met lots of people from around the world and had great fun climbing up onto the diving platforms and jumping into the river. The only problem we encountered was at 1800 when the bars were closing and all of the rings had gone so we had to swim partly down river before getting out and jumping into a Tuk Tuk. Considering how quickly it gets dark, I'm really not surprised this leads to so many casualties each year!

Once back in Vang Vien we all went for dinner and watched a few Friends episodes before going to bed at a very reasonable hour as there is a curfew at 2330 everywhere for music and drinking.

On Sunday, we then got up early and had a very painful 7 hour bus journey to Luang Prabang. I do not think the distance was particularly far but the roads are awful and you constantly go up and down mountains so we made a promise to ourselves to avoid long journeys for a few days.

By Sunday evening we had arrived safely and have thoroughly enjoyed our time here.

I will tell you all about Luang Prabang in the next message.

Lots of love

Izzie

xxxx

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