Tubing in Vang Vieng - The party capital of Laos

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The bus to Vang Vieng was a disgusting 6 hour affair going around winding and twisting roads that lined the hills and mountains of the area. I did not enjoy the journey and took a fair few travel sickness tablets to help! Although, it has to be said that the scenery was beautiful which meant that Anna took a few of the infamous out of the window photos! We finally made it after what seemed like hours to Vang Vieng, a small town that has been completely over-run by tourists. The main attraction for the area is the Tubing (an activity that involves hiring a huge rubber ring and floating down river stopping on the way at riverside bars that have a collection of zip-lines, rope swings and slides) and as such a lot of travellers come for this reason and many end up staying for weeks and weeks. The town was made up of a couple of streets lined with cafes that played re-runs of Friends, The Simpsons and Family Guy all day with cushions at the tables to lounge about in. That evening we went to a great restaurant with a good selection of Vegetarian food (for Anna) which served delicious curries and soups so we ended up going back the following two nights! After dinner we went to a few bars one of which had 'fire-limbo'...each to their own!

On our first full day here we went in search of a cave with a lagoon that we had been told was beautiful by some of the Gibbon crew! We hired bikes and cycled off in the right direction, sadly we strayed off the correct route and ended up at a different cave that housed a Buddha and several bats! As it was getting late we decided to head back just as another storm started. We got drenched (a common theme in our trip!) whilst we cycled home through massive puddles along the little dirt road. By the time we got back we were starving so had lunch before hiring our tubes. We got a tuk tuk to the start of the stretch of river where chaos reigned! There were people dancing, drinking and swinging into the river from the moment we got there (about 3pm). It really was like Brits abroad...we'd destroyed an amazingly beautiful stretch of river, lined with huge great tree covered karsts with this! We made the most of the tube though and really enjoyed floating down the river which was pretty fast flowing! People threw out ropes so you could grab on and get pulled into the next stop. We all did a swing as a pair and took it in turns to photograph each other! The swing we tried was one of the lower ones but it was still pretty scary! (It was actually the only swing I did, again Steph had someone who is more of a dare-devil to play with! I was the designated photographer and holder of the dry-bag!) From here we floated downstream and made it back to town for 6pm when the tubes had to be back for. That night we enjoyed the Friends on show at the cafes and had a lazy evening before an early night ready for our second attempt at finding the lagoon the following day.

The second try was more successful as we hired a tuk tuk to take us there! We climbed the cliff (it was not a path, it was pretty much vertical!) to the cave to see the reclining Buddha. The Buddha was tiny, not at all like it looked in the book, but the cave was huge and pretty impressive! We walked around here with our little torch with a few slips and slides...we came out pretty muddy! I had a quick dip in the lagoon which was rather nice, apart from the huge fish that lived in it! That afternoon we went tubing again. This time Anna and Steph did the really high swings! I went up the steps only to look over the edge (big mistake), chicken out and come straight back down!

That evening after our meal at the same restaurant we went to the bars again. We had decided to get the bus to the Laos capital Vientiane early the next morning (as in we would have to get up at around 4am) so we stayed up through the night dancing in the rain (yes it was raining again!!) The journey was quick and we arrived in the capital nice and early so we had time to look around before Anna's flight back to Vietnam to meet her friend. (She was on her University holidays that last three weeks so came to see us for 5 days in between her travels with her friend from Uni) The capital city was tiny and it took about 2 hours to have seen everything that there was to see including an Arc de Triomphe - esque archway on the main street. We had a final meal in a bakery before waving her off as she drove away in a little tuk-tuk. We had an amazing time with her and it was lovely to see her again after so long. It's quite sad being back to out little pair but we're hoping a trip to some islands in Southern Laos may cheer us up! We're leaving Vientiane tonight (after a very long sleep this morning) on an overnight bus.

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