Day 31 (continued)

So after a long day of travelling we went out to grab some dinner & drinks....however we only managed the latter. We bumped into friends from the hostel in Chiang Rai and drank a lot of beer Lao! Hannah then saw that you get a free vest with every 2 cocktails bought. 4 cocktails later we had a vest each and decided to go to the local club with a group of 4 Belgian friends who were on our bus. I would write more about the evenings events however I would be making it up as it was a complete blur! All I remember is getting back to the guesthouse and then remembering to take our malaria tablets.....on an empty stomach.

Day 32

So we both feel like crap, however I came up with a great idea to hire a bicycle and cycle to the blue lagoon! Please bear in mind that the last cycling experience resulted in both of us spending the day in bed with sunstroke...I really don't know how I come up with these ideas sometimes...or more importantly how I convince Hannah to go along with them!

Cycling to the blue lagoon was an experience in itself....riding over big rocks and dodging cows who would stand in our way on the road. However this was just the beginning. We came to a split in the road which did not appear on the map and saw a sign that said to "cave & swim". We knew that the blue lagoon had a cave and a place to swim so were certain that this was the right place. Oh how wrong we were...

We continued cycling to a very quiet wooden shack where there were a group of Laotian people asking for money to visit the cave. We paid the 10,000 Kip to enter (this was advertised online so again we thought this must be the right place). However there was nobody else around. We started walking and a few minutes later 2 Laotian men join us. 1 stood in front and the other behind (this is a bit weird) we continued walking for about 10 minutes and they hadn't said a word to us. We stopped. They stopped (slightly worried now). Still 1 in front and 1 behind. We looked on Hannah's phone to see if we were in the right place. We were in the middle of nowhere with no roads/paths around. We were walking to the middle of nowhere with nothing but rocks around us. (Worried!)

We ask them if we are heading to the blue lagoon with the cave they answer "yes cave". We honestly thought we were going to get mugged or worse. I was keeping my eyes open trying to spot the biggest rock near us incase anything happened. We said we had made a mistake and hurried back to the entrance, got on our bikes and pedalled away.

So on reflection it seems that they were tour guides who couldn't speak English and they were following us to show us around a different cave. We hope.

After 1 1/2 hours cycling we arrive at the blue lagoon. The place was lovely and I had a swim and jumped off the tree while Hannah relaxed in the sun. We also saw the Belgians there and managed to shove our bikes on their Tuk Tuk to get home. We later met up with them for dinner as it was their last night in Vang Vieng.

Day 33 (tubing)

A definition of tubing "it involves you renting a tire innertube for the day, heading down to the Mekong river and floating down the river past the various bars. Each bar offers free shots to entice you in, as you float down the river, some Laotian guys will throw you a rope, you grab the rope and get pulled into the bar. Order some drinks, and carry on down the river."

This was one of my favourite days so far for obvious reasons. Whilst Hannah remained somewhat sensible due to the danger of drowning. I ended up absolutely hammered. It was great. We "tubed" with a German and Israeli to add to this unique experience and they were hilarious. We were late taking our tubes back so lost part of our deposit but who cares when you are sitting in a tube with a strong vodka and coke or beer, drifting down the river with the beautiful scenery around you.

Day 34

Feeling fairly normal today we chilled out, went for lunch and watched Friends. All the cafes/restaurants have tvs with either Friends or Family Guy on all the time. We met up with a couple we had met earlier in the week and another girl. Ironically one of them was from Worthing! We had a few drinks and listened to the live music and then headed back to our guesthouse to embark the following day to Vientiane (the capital of Laos).