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Published: April 13th 2006
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Tuk Tuk Madness
Pete's new profession 28th March
Another early start as a tuk tuk is coming to pick us up at 8.30am to take us to the bus station for our minibus to Vang Vieng. In true Laos time fashion the tuk tuk turns up late. Nevertheless on goes our baggage and ourselves. The driver gets to the end of the road and then stops and gets out, chats to some guys for five minutes, and then sets off again. We then go round the corner to pick up some more travellers (Becks and Tim) who were some really nice Brits who are on a ten month honeymoon, backpacker style. It's only 5 more minutes before we have stopped again, and again the driver gets out, has a wander, does some business, chills out, then we are moving again. 5 more minutes up the road and he has run out of petrol! Without saying a word he jumps out of the tuk tuk, grabs a petrol can, jumps on another tuk tuk heading in the opposite direction and disappears. We speculate as to what is going on, but enjoy messing around on the tuk tuk. Eventually he returns with petrol and we are off again.
Local Villages
local children We get to the bus station around 9:45. The bus was supposed to leave at 9 and we wonder if it is still going to be there. After much pissing around we eventually get on the minibus and leave at 10:30. Laos time is quite interesting, they just do whatever whenever.
We really hit it off with Tim and Becks and chat to pass the time. meanwhile in the back of the bus Wolfgang is having some teeth related baguette issues in that when he bites into his baguette his three front teeth fall out. In the words of Wolfgang. "this is not so good"! We discuss the availability of dental care in Laos and decide that the best option is top get him back to Bangkok. We can't do anything however until we get to Vang Vieng.
The journey was quite something. The road twisted and turned round huge mountains. The driving was impressive and included: overtaking on blind bends, taking corners way to fast and putting the minibus through gaps neither of us would walk through! We did eventually arrive in Vang Vieng like a Vodka Martini, shaken but not stirred.
We trek around Vang
Wolfgang
Minus teeth Vieng and find a great place to stay in a flush guesthouse with three balconies and a great view for $4 a night. We then hooked Wolfgang up with a minibus to Vientiane where he could fly to Bangkok. We go for a beer by the river and chill out. When returning to the guesthouse there was an amazing thunderstorm. The surrounding mountains being lit up with every lightning strike. The silhouettes were as impressive if not more than seeing it during the day. That was quite something. We were also rather amused by a crazy banana pancake guy who was selling on the street who really tried to keep the dream alive in the torrential rain. Again there is an emotional good bye, this time with Wolfgang. We are really gutted to see him go and can't believe that he didn't even get to come tubing. his company and amusing anicdotes will be sorely missed. Extreme!!
29th March
Today was all about relaxing. We woke up quite late as we had been travelling all of the previous day. We contemplated going tubing but the weather was still overcast and so we decided to just chill out, have
a look around Vang Vieng. We went for some breakfast with Tim and Becks and Pete had the hottest chilli noodle soup in the world. It was so funny. He had serious sweats and the lady that owned the place found it highly amusing. The place we ate at was a hawker food store. These are basically women who cook on the street and its super cheap and super tasty and a great way to meet local people. Tim taught us the way of the hawker and we have now become masters of sniffing out really cheap food. Thanks mate!
After this we hitched a ride on a local taxi (which consisted of a lawnmower attached to a wooden trailer) to the local market. We tried to find a guitar for Pete and failed. They were all really bad quality and cost way to much. We went back into the main town to have a look around. In the middle of Laos, this beautiful county they have big cafes full of western tourists playing episodes of Friends all day. We find this highly amusing. How can people come to such an amazing county to a little town surrounded by
Vang Vieng
The streets mountains and culture and sit and watch Friends all day?!? Not only this but they also had a Simpsons café and a Family Guy café. We decided this really sucked.
In the afternoon we hooked ourselves up with some Thai fisherman pants which are the comfiest trousers in the world. We also then bought essential Beer Laos t-shirts to complete the look. During the afternoon we spotted a pool competition at one of the bars and decided that Pete, as a budding pool player, should enter to see if we could win a crate of beer. In the end the we all entered the comp. Martin was out first and therfore got a massive shot of Laos Laos Whiskey. Pete was out fourth and got nothing and Tim hit the jackpot and came second. The guy that won gave everytone a beer from his crate and Tim got a Bucket and a Beer Laos vest for coming second. So out of the three of us we did very well! After the comp we headed back to the guesthouse to get ready for tubing tommorow.
30th March
Today was all about tubing. The weather didn’t look good again
View
This was the view from our room but we decided we had to go as we were leaving the next day. We hooked ourselves up with some dry bags to put all of our stuff in and then got a tuk tuk north of Vang Vieng to the start point. We started early as it can take a long time to get down the river during the dry season. We jumped in the tubes and started floating down the river. Our first bar stop was only a few hundred meters down the river and we stopped for a beer and a blast on the rope swing. This pattern then continued at every bar and rope swing for the next 5 hours. Tubing is awesome and we had a great time. It’s difficult to explain what it is like except very slow and relaxing ride intermixed with crazy rope swings and drinking. Check out the pictures. We did have one minor disaster when Pete dropped the camera in the river, but luckily it survived. We also made the schoolboy error of not applying a suncream because it was cloudy, and we both got sunburn! By the time we got to the end of the river we were all
quite merry. We went for dinner again at our local restaurant where service with a smile was paramount. The woman was the happiest woman in the world. We have never seen anyone smile so much. Brilliant!
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