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Published: February 25th 2009
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Polly:
Vang Vieng is described in the Lonely Planet guide as 'a sort of poor man's Khao San Road, with backpackers laid out in TV bars watching Hollywood blockbusters and endless reruns of 'Friends' while sucking down 'happy' shakes'. When the minivan dropped us off, this was more or less exactly what we found. You could hear Rachel, Monica and Phoebe's whining from all directions. Vang Vieng broke up the journey from Phonsavan to Vientiane, and the tubing activity came highly recommended so we wanted to stop there for a few days, but had to get off the main street and away from the mind-numbing US sitcom and the hordes of zombies sprawled out in front of it!
Pernette and Stefan, the guys from Delft who we'd met in Phonsavan, seemed to share our sentiments so the four of us set off to find some peace and quiet. We walked for about twenty minutes and crossed the river, in search of Maylyn Guesthouse, as recommended in the Lonely Planet. We should have known better - it was full. So, we walked for another twenty minutes and crossed another bridge back to the main town, keeping our heads down and
acting oblivious as we passed the bridge toll booth. Here we found a bar so that we could sit down and gather our thoughts. We left the boys to look after the bags while Pernette and I went to do some haggling. We found a beautiful hotel with air con, a bath, and lots of luxuries, but we could only get them down to 150,000 Kip (about 14 GBP). We were so tempted, but it really was stretching the budget. We tried a few more, but the cheapest we found was 100,000 Kip next to a building site. After some more searching, we went back to the bar whilst Ross did a recce of another part of town. He found some cheaper rooms up a side street so we decided to head in that direction, whilst Pernette and Stefan settled for something a little pricier near the river.
Our rucksack-laden search took us a further hour, during which we experienced some real hostility from the guesthouse owners. If we asked to see a room, asked for their best price, then said 'thank you' and left to check the one next door, they got really annoyed. When we returned to
take the room they'd tell us they were full and wouldn't talk to us. The third time this happened I got so frustrated - I was tired, my back was killing, my head was banging, we'd been to some of the remotest areas on our travels and were knackered, and to top it all off, I was still feeling really up and down about the sad news from home. I took off my rucksack, sat on the chair outside the guesthouse and burst into tears. I know the old 'waterworks' trick is a lame option, but immediately the owner offered us one of three available rooms and was really friendly and sympathetic. I dug out some Nurofen from my rucksack and lay down on the bed for a bit before pulling myself together. That evening we met up with our Dutch friends for food at an Italian restaurant, then turned in.
On Wednesday we explored the town, and looked into the cost of 'tubing' which we had planned to do the next day. We found a cafe with free WiFi, so caught up on a few internet tasks and had some lunch. We had planned to travel overland to
the south of Laos, and explore the area before crossing into Cambodia but, feeling like we were rushing around a bit too much, we went to investigate the cost and availability of flights. We ended up booking a cheeky flight from Vientiane (about four hours away) to Phnom Penh for February 8th, deciding to leave the south of Laos out altogether. Maybe next time...
Thursday was the day of my Grandpa's funeral so we searched for a bottle of Scotch, his favourite tipple. I actually can't stand whisky but I felt it an appropriate toast to his long and fantastic life.
On Thursday, we went tubing for the day. For 55,000 Kip, you can hire an inflatable rubber inner tube and float down the Nam Song River. You get loaded into a sawngthaew, with the tubes tied to the roof, and driven 3km north of the town. From there you float downstream with the option of stopping at the many bars along the way. The river itself is fairly gentle, but there are many slides and rope swings along the way to spice it up. Given that we had already seen about twenty injured travellers in the town,
as a result of tubing, we were a little cautious. Health & safety is not a priority with these rope swings as the water level was less than half a metre at times! But the many bars offering 'happy' shakes and unlimited free 'Lao Lao' shots may have also been contributing to the casualties!
We floated down with our Dutch friends, and Caz and Nik, two girls we'd met in the sawngthaew. It turned out that they were both from Kidderminster, a few mile from Ross' home. We stopped for lunch at one of the bars, and they pulled us in using ropes with plastic bottles tied to the end. As soon as you step on dry land the barman comes around with a free shot of 'Lao Lao'. He continues to do this every five minutes or so until you leave.
In the afternoon, we stopped to grab a few Beer Laos, as we floated downstream, and eventually ended up back in Vang Vieng at 17:55 - five minutes before the 6pm deadline, when we would have incurred a 20,000 Kip penalty for late return of our tubes!
We all went back to our respective guesthouses,
then met up later for dinner. We had a really nice meal, and the guys were great company. At 10.40pm local time the funeral was starting at home so all the guys joined me in a toast. I felt really homesick right then, but was so happy to be surrounded by such a cool group of people. The first shot of whisky tasted rank, but by the third and fourth it had improved!
The following morning we got up leisurely and caught a bus to Vientiane, our final destination in Laos...
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