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Published: February 19th 2007
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We caught the VIP bus for Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng. It's called the VIP bus because it has a toilet and you get water, sweets and lunch too. Vang Vieng sits next to the Nam Song and we saw a few people walking back with their rubber rings after a days tubing. This is the main reason people come here. Over the years it's become almost compulsory that anyone who visits Vang Vieng must float down the river in a big rubber tyre stopping off at the numerous bars along the way. That night we watched Family Guy in a bar while having a beer then went to a few other bars before running into Josh, a Canadian guy we had known in Fiji. We had randomly bumped into him in Luang Prabang. It's quite strange to see someone from that long back on the trip, especially since we hadn't kept in touch at all. We all ended up drinking at Smile Island Bar around a big bonfire.
We woke up with a hangover the next day and had some breakfast. It's so good over here in Laos, because of the French connection you can get baguettes everywhere. The
only negative side is that it tends to attract a lot of French travellers too! We had planned on doing the tubing today but were too hungover and the last thing we felt like doing was drinking, so decided to hire bikes and cycle around the area. We biked across a bridge over the Nam Song and then 6km along a stony dirt road to Tham Phu Kham. We left our bikes and climbed about 100m up to the cave. On entering there is a reclining Buddha sat in the middle. We walked up to the Buddha then past it into the cave proper. Matt had brought his maglight so we used that. It was a huge cave and we ventured only a little way in because we didn't want to get lost, but still managed to be in there for around an hour. There was also a really nice stream with rope swings at the start of the climb to the cave. I put my feet in but it was quite cold so just swang on the rope swing instead.
The next day we did the tubing. We turned up at the tubing office got our rings then
Rope swing
Vang Vieng waited for a few minutes for the tuk-tuk to fill up with people. Once we had enough squeezed in we set off north to the start of the tubing. We got in our ring and jumped into the cold river. After about a minute of tubing we got out at our first Beer Lao stop (the second bar along the river) with the rest of the guys from our tuk-tuk. They had 2 zip lines over the river but no-one could face falling in the cold river yet so nobody did it. After our beer we tubed again for about 10 minutes before getting to the two biggest bars. They had rope swings here and feeling a bit more adventurous now we both swung out and plunged into the river. We quickly got out and had another beer. After spending a while here we tubed again for around 15 minutes missing out a few quiet bars before stopping at our third bar. After the beer here we got back into our tubes, by this time it had clouded over and was getting very cold! We paddled our tubes along as the river flow was very tame, at some spots we
even got stuck as the water level was so low. After what seemed like ages we got to the end, 3km down the river where two small boys hopped on our rings to guide us in. After they demanded money but we just told them we didn't have any and they let us have our rings back eventually! That night we went to a full moon party at Smile Island Bar.
We took the bus the next day to the capitol, Vientiane. Here we bought some flights with Vietnam Airlines to Hanoi. On the first day we bumped into Josh and went over to his guesthouse where there were a few other people. He was leaving that night to go to Paske, but we went out with the other guys there, two girls from England Alex and Annie, and an Irish guy Dave. We also bumped into Dave in a resturant the next day and arranged to meet up with him later. In the afternoon we went to Patuxai, Vientianes Arc de Triomphe then looked around the market. We met up with Dave, then Alex came walking past the bar we were in. Her and Anniewere supposed to leave
for Vang Vieng that day but they stayed because they felt too hungover. Matt and I had dinner then met up with them later. We went to a bar and played pool and met a local guy Bouma. He told us about another place where we could go. So we went to the Don Chan Palace hotel nightclub. It was supposed to be 30,000 kip to get in but Bouma's brother worked as security there so we got in for free. We had one drink before the place closed at which point Bouma suggested we go bowling as it would be open till 4am. We all jumped into a tuk-tuk followed by Bouma on his scooter and had a game of ten-pin bowling. We were awful!
We spent the following day hanging around waiting for our flight, taking a walk down to the river and visiting a statue. We took a jumbo (kind of tuk-tuk) to the airport which was crazy. The driver was driving really fast which made his jumbo leap over all the bumps in the road making us leap out of our seats, narrowly avoiding banging our heads on the roof of the jumbo. Despite this we
got to the airport in one piece which is more than can be said for the jumbo as something cracked when going over a lump and the whole thing started to rattle after that!
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B Levick
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its nearly time to settle down
Hi Gary, sorry to burst your wonderful bubble, but its nearly time to settle down again. I hear you will be home soon, and you'll find a difference in the price of beer here. Pity you couldn't make it in time for my 80th Party on March 24th (The beer will be free ! ) Love grandma XX