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Published: September 7th 2006
Vang Vieng is the party town of Laos. It is built on the bank of the mekong and is essentially just a massive tourist trap.
We arrived after a daunting 7hr drive around the mountains of Laos and that night did what was expected of us and 'got on it'.
VV is a dirty little town and we decided our stay there would be quite brief. The next morning feeling especially spaced out and hanging out of our arses we decided the best course of action was to rent out 4 massive inner tubes and float down the fast flowing mekong sans lifejackets. This was a thrilling combination of beers, rope-swings and chicks in bikinis which was right up our alley and pretty much what we signed up for. After escaping death in so many ways we swiftly got out of the town and hit the trail to Vietnam.
Our original intention was to stay in Laos capital Vientienne, but on arrival we decided it didn't look like it would offer us a lot other than temples which i think now we have officially sacked off. (being the culture vultures that we are.) After following a couple of idiotic american
tourists around for an hour in a vain hope to find the bus station we stumbled accross the local station and purchased tickets for a 20hr trip to Hue, a town on the Vietnam's east coast. This would prove to be the worst decision we ever made...
The trip was horrific. After re-fuelling on a nutritious diet of strangely flavoured crisps and mouldy bread we settle down on the back seat and tried to get some sleep. This was nigh on impossible with the driver taking delight in sounding his massive horn non-sensically every 10seconds or so. We could put up with this to an extent, but when we were roused from semi-sleep by the driver in order for them to smuggle copius amounts of red-bull and cheap fridges accross the border we were slightly irked. Our annoyance was confirmed by the corruption and beaurocracy on the border where we were convinced we were going to get stitched up by our ethically dubious drivers for something.
After 2hrs of faffing about and back-handers our driver got back in and 7 arduous hours later dropped us off 20kms on the outskirts of the city.
After treating ourselves to a nice
Cramped
Marsh would have been a terrible VCroom and slap up meal we got up the next day and took a tour around the DMZ (demilitarised zone) the highlight of which being a tour of the tunnels that the Vietcong used to live in. This was really cool but very cramped for Marsh, Adam and I (Danny was clearly fine). The rest of the tour was pretty dull really and was just looking out of the coach window at landscapes that 'used to be a warzone'; interesting at first but then gets tiresome after the umpteenth stop to take photos of piles of rocks.
Deciding that the cultural part of our tour was wearing thin we decide that the best course of action was to get to a westernised beach resort and settle on a tourist haven called Nha-Trang, where we are now (and for the foreseeable future).
The town itself is pretty grimey and there doesn't seem to be much to it other than the beach. This is fine by us and after a healthy dose of sunburn, beers and football games with local street kids we decide that the best part of travelling is most certainly not the travel.
We went out last
Paradise Found (sort of)
(Copyright: Sam Edwards) night to a club far to nice for the likes of us which was pretty uneventful apart from the walk home when we were all individually acosted by LadyBoys who did the old tried and tested 'grope you and steal your money' manouvere on me. Luckily i hadn't taken my wallet with me so i think the only nicked about 30p (which if you think about it is a small price to pay for having your balls squeezed by a bloke. Cheaper than Nok's affections anyhow)
We've spent the day hungover and sunbathing which is a routine id imagine we'd stick to for a while....
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Dad
non-member comment
Experiences
Excellent blog again - tunnels are pretty amazing aren't they - see if you can get to see the system they have in Saigon, very impressive, as is the American WAR museum. You certainly are cramming in the life experiences - I've never had me bits felt by a bloke, even when I've offered 30p ! ! Keep having fun. Take Care Dad