Vang Vieng So far ..

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I am going to steal the blogging this time from Elaine while she's not looking. ahem .. cough cough .... After settling in Vang Vieng on the first night, without delay the next morning we hooked up with the guys we took the bus down from luang Prabang with and rented some tubes. Because we were seven and doing 8 kilometers the shop provided us with a free guide "La". For those of you unfamiliar with the sport, tubing consists of renting a tube (inner of a tracter tyre, nuthin fancy now). Getting a tuk tuk to the launch point up the river, jumping in and away you go. Along the way are a few rapids and bars with swings. On the way past the bars they throw u out a bamboo stick so u can drag urself in.

So off we went. After about 5Km of some relaxing n floating we pulled into the first bar , Myself and Etienne were the first to try the swing and seeing as we survived we we're able to convince Rebecca Elaine and Shauna to give it a go. After a few jumps and a beer we headed off down the river, we were advised to wear life jackets by the guide as the river was a bit swollen with the monsoon rains, actually most people were wearling life jackets along the way, generally this isnt the case. It was great having a guide actually, he was in a kayak and carried all our stuff for us and pulled us out of ditches and various other things we got snagged on along the way. On to bar number two. On the way we passed some of the guys we took the slow boat to Luang Prabang with. Think its all a well travelled path here so we'll keep bumping into the same people along the way. Bar number two had some volley ball and an even higher swing. Myself and Etienne gave it a few goes, it was fairly daunting standing on the launch pad, and alot tougher to swim across to safety through the river currents, but was safe enough, everyone else gave it a miss though. A beer and a banna later, we set the tubes in motion for another 1km of so and came to our third and final bar. Again the swing was even higher but this part off the river was alot safer. Once u got Elaine on the swing u couldnt stop her, I think maybe 5/6 goes in a row we finally managed to pull her away from the swing to dry off at the fire and take a break. Another drink and some fruit we headed off to the finsh point, about another 20 mins of tubing and ended up back in Vang Vieng absolutly wrecked. We were planning on an early night but ended running into the guys from the slow boat after dinner and it turned into a bit of a late one, (Well late by Laos standards i.e 11.30 :D) Had planned to be active today but muscles killing us from too much swinging.

Not sure when we are going to leave here, our next destination is Vientiane, the capital city. It's about 3 hours away by bus. We were thinking wednesday which would give us another days tubing tomorrow but there is the option to Kayak to Vientaine which is a 4 hour leisurely trip, so we mite give that ago if our muscles heal! Gawwwd so many decisions, it really is tough .. hehehe

Time for some more realxing ... seee ya

Paul and Elaine

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Comments

[Mark]

capitalisation
Nice one Paul, capitalisation at last, I wasn't sure if Elaine was just bad at typing or spelling place names... :P

[Elaine]

capitalisation?!?
I know where the capitals go Marco!!! I was too busy rapturously filling ye all in with the stories to worry about punctuation and grammar! But seems big brother is watching. Perfecto punctuation etc to follow!!!! :p

[John]

Swinging eh?
"Had planned to be active today but muscles killing us from too much swinging"....didnt know it was THAT type of holiday. but good luck to you kids, hope it works out and yee have lots of fun!!