Advertisement
Published: June 14th 2017
Edit Blog Post
Geo: 18.9401, 102.357
The road from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng is supposed to be one of the most spectacular drives in the country. Unfortunately, due to the hellish weather and mist Wales would be proud of, we saw nothing but the tail lights of the car in front. This was a 8 hr drive, which in the grand scheme of our travels so far, should have been a walk in the park, however, 9 of us, plus packs. in a 13 seater mini van.... not the best!!!
We arrived at the sister hotel to the one we stayed at in Luang Prabang, opposite the Irish Bar. This bar, The Rising Sun, was owned by a guy called Gary, and was famed as the only Irish Pub in the country! It may have been Irish, with Irish stew, but it had no Guinness!!! I would not dare call it an Irish, without the black stuff!! It did however have a wonderful selection of 'normal' food, which after the noodles and rice of China and Luang Prabang was wonderful! Sat there watching the olympics back home was lovely!
The following day, the rain fell from the sky pretty constantly, and i was most grateful
for my GBP1 brolly purchased in the previous town. So after breakfast, myself, Bec and Steph went for a wander around town.... we were not inspired. This town/ village has grown up due to the tubing industry and therefore nearly every other shop was selling tubing tshirts, shorts and 'waterproof' bags for money in the river! Ever other building, was a bar/restaurant selling Pizzas, Cocktail Buckets and 'Happy Shakes'. Safe to say, shopping was not high on the agenda here! We ducked into the Bakery for some much needed sugar (amazing cakes) and a coffee, before venturing to a Wat, so we could do something for the day, other than eat and drink! It was lovely, but in the rain was nothing compared to the grandeur of Luang. The afternoon was spent writing journal, whilst watching Chicago and eating beef and gravy baguettes! An awesome afternoon, I miss proper gravy, mopped up with bread!!
The following day, was tubing day.... the only reason really for coming to Vang Vieng in the first place. Basically a huge pub crawl, down 3km of the River Song on an inner tube of a tractor tyre!!! Now it can be pretty dangerous, as 22 people
died in the space of a few mnths last year, however this is only if you are smashed or stoned off your head! Our plan - not to die!!! Once the deposit for our rings and buoyancy aids had been paid, we were piled into a Tuk Tuk with our rings and driven down stream. The first bar we hit, poured a whole bottle of whisky (and i am not talking a little bottle either) into our 3 drinks! You can see why people die! After an hour of trying to get the whisky (cheap local shite!) bucket down, we moved, or should i say floated to the next bar. At each bar you acquire a wrist band as a brand of where you have been, but at this one there was a rope swing, spray paint and i love Lao headbands! Awesome!! Here there were free chips with the drinks - a welcome food hit! A few bars later we were on the drift back to town, as we did not want to lose our deposits, or be out on the river after dark! There was a plan to catch a tuk tuk back to the 1st bar, however,
as this would cost us all another GBP5 we decided to go back to the Irish and carry on there with some food (baguettes with beef and gravy!) in our bellies!
Surprisingly, the following morning everyone was in quite high spirits! Maybe the river water did us some good!! We basically had a 'Lazy Sunday' Friday, where we ate crap, watched films and Friends episodes all day! It was raining, with little else to do! I went on a lone adventure for an hr to attempt to find a handicraft centre, however failed miserably, but did see the backstreets, meet some little kids and see two more Wats on the way!
I did love the tubing, and the scenery, had it not been misty, would have been spectacular, however, for me, this was all a little too touristastic, Malia on tour for me!!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.052s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0316s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb