Messing about on the river

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Ever been on a bus for 6 hours over mountains with steep winding sides holding onto your stomachs, with armed 14 year old militia with AK47s waving at the bus as you go past? We have!!!! We had a lovely time!!!

Arrived in Vang Vieng, a typical tourist spot lodged between beautiful carst limestone valleys. Booked into one of the best value and well furnished guest house/hostels we have stayed in, for the equivalent of 2.50. Well comfy bed, air conditioning and a HOT SHOWER!!!

Nothing much to do in the town except watch movies in one of the generic cafes serving pizza, burgers and sub-standard thai food, unless you choose from the "other menu" which consisted of opium, magic mushrooms and weed. Magic, if your into that kind of thing... we opted for the pizza!

Vang Vieng's main tourist attraction, and the only reason why people travel the deadly bus journey we arrived on, is the "grown-up" fun park that is the river. If you think you've been on a pub crawl, you should try this!!! Whats the crack?? We'll explain...

So you start of paying the equivalent of a quid or so, and are furnished with a rather large tractor wheel inner-tube. You are subsequently chauffeured (or herded into a van) and taken about 4km up stream to the starting point of your aquatic adventure, where you climb upon your valve-wielding vessel and float downstream. Sounds quite sedate hey??? Ha Ha! No... within about 30 seconds you reach your first "bar". A jerry-rigged bamboo construction with a ridiculously distorted sound system offering 2 drinks - BeerLao or free Lao Lao shot (Absynth potency shot). Whilst your considering which one to go for, you start to realize there is a massive flying-fox contraption by which drunken revelers are launching themselves off!! Not wanting to be party poopers, we were straight on. Karen first, who did a dramatic unintentional somersault when she did nt jump off before she reached the end, sending her spinning like a crash test dummy into the river below... mine was a much smoother affair obviously, not quite so dramatic though... great fun and only the start.

Further down the river, and a few beers later we were swinging from frightening high rope swings, and laughing hysterically at all the drunken fools who got it completely wrong!!!

We only made it a little further down the river before night drew in whilst we were still drinking buckets, chatting to randoms round a camp fire. One of the most highly recommended laughs we've had...

Severe aching arms and legs kept us at bay the following day, but the day after, we rented a couple of extremely dodgy mountain bikes, and ventured to a "lagoon" near a cave. Nice water, more rope swings, and crazy thai people jumping out of the tops of trees into the water...

Made our way on from there to the quite modest capital of Laos - Vientianne in time for James' birthday... see you there

PS... no photos from the river, as we took our underwater camera, and havent finished the film yet... hopefully some good photos though, to show the insanity of the day!!

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Photos

Vang Vieng
Biking to the cave, quite possibly one of the sweatiest days we have had!!!

Vang Vieng
The lagoon.

Vang Vieng
Bike route over the river