Vang Vieng

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We caught a mini bus from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng along some of the windiest roads we've ever been on. We both felt very sick by the time we arrived, but the scenery along the way was amazing! There isn't much to Vang Vieng but it breaks up the journey to Vientiane and is where all travelers go 'tubing'!! After getting a room we went to have dinner and the heavens opened!! The rain was so heavy, the restaurant had to pull the shutters down to keep us dry!! Whilst waiting for the rain to stop, we ordered the best pancake ever - it was like a Victoria sponge and kept us busy for a while! We then braved the rain and made it back to the guest house!

We didn't do much the following day as we were waiting for Tim and Cathrin to arrive from Luang Prabang. We had a wander around town and along the river. We met up with Tim and Cathrin for dinner on the river and arranged our 'tubing' for the following day. Tubing consists of sitting in a large tractor tyre sized inner tube and floating down the river for 4 km. There are bars along the way and many people stop at everyone and arrive intoxicated back at Vang Vieng. Whilst we were having dinner, we heard a drunken shout from the pitch black river from two people asking 'if we lived in Vang Vieng?"!! It was lucky they got out there or they would have carried on into the night!!

We stopped at a few bars along the river and Chris had his first shot of Lao Lao whiskey at 11am! Getting out of the tube for the first time I missed the step to the bar and disappeared under the water - I hadn't assumed it was that deep! We were floating down the river and stopping at bars for about 4 hours and then the final couple of hours the bars disappeared! It was quite shallow in places so occasionally we got beached or scrapped our bums along the bottom!! There was also a lack of current towards the end so we had to paddle. By the time we got back to Vang Vieng my arms were killing me! It was great fun and the bars were cool with table tennis, volleyball, badminton and rope swings!

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