Vang Vieng is a place designed purely for tourists. If there was ever a question of whether the influences of the west had reached the middle regions of this most delightfully simple of Asian nations, then here you will find an unequivocal yes.

From the tubing along the Nam Song river, of which has succeeded in putting Vang Vieng firmly on the travellers map, through to the scores of video bars with their permanently looping episodes of Friends and Family Guy, serving burger and chips, you would be excused for thinking you were in Spain rather than SE Asia.

As you lay back, with a cheap and delicious fruit shake in hand, and take in the next episode of whatever happens to be showing, as we did on our first day, its easy to forget that Vang Vieng does also however, have a slightly less documented charm, for the town is situated amongst stunning scenery. Set in the hills overlooking the Nam Song river and surrounded by lush vegetation and jutting limestone karsts, it is not difficult to imagine the quaint and simple setting it once was.

It was early evening as we arrived, finding ourselves dropped at one of the guesthouses set back from the main street. With the lack of street lighting along the rough dirt roads it was dark and the early evening air was, thankfully, pleasantly cool. The guesthouse looked ok from the outside so we decided to check out the rooms. They looked as though they had been recently refurbished. They were spotless. Sparkling white bed covers, to match the clean white decor. Dark wood headboard. Sparkling floor tiles and a gleaming bathroom. It was at this point that we entered into the single easiest piece of negotiation we are likely to encounter.

“How much?” I asked, as the petite owner shadowed me around the room.
“70,000 kip.” Came the reply.
I walked back out of the room towards Aimee.
“Ok, 60.” Said the petite woman.
Myself and Aimee exchanged confused looks.
“Ok, 50.” Came the final offer, with a nod of the head that indicated we had driven a hard bargain.

At what worked out at under 4GBP we could hardly refuse. This was after all, 20,000 kip less than we had paid for our run down hole of a room in Vientiane.

The following day, besides taking in numerous episodes of Family Guy and sampling possibly Laos tastiest local dish, chicken laap, we were also treated to the spectacle of the days tubers returning. Some, it has to be said, in better shape than others. As we watched the flow of staggering backpackers emerge, tube in hand, from tuk-tuk after tuk-tuk, one thing was pretty evident. They were mainly Brits.

We both sat, shaking our heads, tutting loudly and declaring them to be “an embarrassment to their country”. Look at the state of them. They should know better. Louts.

Yea, you can see where this is going can’t you…

Five hours, several potent buckets of cocktails, the odd whiskey shot, a few zip-lines and the occasional rapid later we were back. It was a little before 18:00 and, frankly, the world was fuzzy. We struggled along the main street, vaguely in the direction of what we believed to be BBQ food, whilst singing football songs.

Yep, that was us, exactly 24 hours after we had sat and lamented those ‘typical Brits’. Don’t you just hate hypocrites?

Ok, to take you back to the beginning, our day had begun at around 13:00 with our arrival at the tube launching point, AKA bar number one. Before we had even unloaded our tubes we were being offered ‘welcome’ shots of whiskey.

“Free, free, no worry…” came the declaration as generous quantities were duly poured by the enthusiastic welcoming committee.

Suddenly the day was looking up!

For the record, all the ‘bars’ along the tubing route (of which there are 11) are nothing more than crude, wooden, tree-house type structures, erected against the banks on either side of the river. Each of them has their own attraction. Be that a zip-line, slide, or even mud wresting/volleyball. Oh, and not to mention disgustingly cheap buckets of whisky.

The river is actually very shallow in places (it was low tide at the time of our visit) and more sedate than we had thought beforehand. There are rapids, but minor ones and generally only at the sides. The bars along the river will throw a line out to each passing tuber. You pick your bar as you float along (aided rather cunningly with flip-flop paddles in our case) and grab the desired line. Simple really. This was a great relief to Aimee after somewhat of a panic following her visions of us, helplessly in our tubes, being dragged, screaming in vein, along the river against our will and out to the cruel mercy of the sea. Never to be heard of again.

The following four hours or so seemed to evaporate into the bright, clear afternoon. I shall admit right now that my memory of the days events are somewhat limited. Reliable sources inform me however, that much fun was indeed had. What had begun with a determined declaration from Aimee that she “was sticking to shandy”, soon (upon arrival at bar number one) degenerated into a series of potent buckets of whatever was on offer and, in turn, duly topped off by more than the odd beer.

I had barely had a chance to wet my lips at the second bar when I looked round to see Aimee charging head first towards the steps leading to the daunting looking zip-line.

With a couple of buckets in the bank she was in her element. So much so that, I believe, a second run was in fact made to the partnering, and no less daunting, crude wooden slide.

Said bar also happened to offer a ‘specialist’ menu, for want of a better phrase.

“Why, what is that?” I hear you ask.

Well, lets just say that if marijuana, opium or certain hallucinogenic fungi are your thing then well, this was the place to be. The barman was a shady looking fellow. Short and of average build, he wore a baseball cap low down, as if to cover his features in preparation for any future ID parade. Following ordering our drinks he suddenly looked restless. Like he really needed the toilet and just knew he wasn’t quite going to make it. Shifting from one foot to the other, he looked left. Then right. Then over his shoulder. Twice. And then he spoke.

“Pssst, hello…”

A raise of the eye brows and more shifty looks were swiftly followed by;

“You want weed, coke, opium?”

At this point a small silver tray displaying a wide variety of potential death penalties was presented to us.

As platters of drugs go it was a real treasure. Up there with the best of them.

Needless to say however, we declined. And not purely due to the more than evident threat of death that all drug offences in this particular country carry.

And so the afternoon progressed. Along with Teal and Alex, two Americans we had met along the way, we made our way, slowly, and at times, no doubt embarrassingly, along the mighty Nam Song river until the threat of darkness (and a loss of tube deposit) forced us out of the water and back to town.

To summarise the remainder of the day, it went roughly as follows:

18:00 - Arrive at tube rental establishment.
18:01 - Realise that we have in fact lost one tube somewhere between the river and here.
18:02 - Plead ignorance and, somehow, find our full deposit being returned.
18:05 - Eat food. BBQ to be precise. Pork and chicken skewers. Oh, and more beer.
19:30 - Decide that we are in fact ‘tired’ (not drunk) and head back to the room.
20:00 - Pass out.
00:30 - Wake up starving hungry - again.
00:40 - Head back out into the night in search of food. Wearing bed clothes.
00:50 - Locate small shop with owner asleep inside. Purchase two snickers, one large packet of crisps and two bottles of sprite.
00:55 - Eat said snacks.
01:00 - Back to Bedfordshire.

Now, in our previous blog entry I had eluded to the fact that, rather annoyingly, we would find ourselves returning to the charming, yet somewhat boring, capital of Laos. Thirty six hours later and following another lazy day along the river nursing sore heads and wondering how I awoke with one royal blue fingernail, we set about doing just that.

To explain, the reason for this was that roughly two weeks prior to our expected date of arrival in the kingdom of Thailand we realised, quite suddenly and of great surprise to ourselves you understand, that we did not in fact have a visa. Our plan was to cross overland from northern Laos and, in doing so you are only permitted a 15 day visa on arrival (its 30 days if you arrive by air). Unfortunately we would be needing much longer than that. Preferably 60 days. Now, hands up who can tell me the only place in Laos where you can obtain one of those?

Yep, that cute little capital city of theirs. Vientiane. The place we had already spent two days in visiting and an uncomfortable 5 hour bus journey getting away from.

There was a plus side too though. Those little sweeties over at the Thai embassy had decided to issue all tourist visas obtained within Vientiane for free. Not a single penny. This was good news. The downside being they couldn’t organise a p*ss up in a brewery, but we wont go into that.

Anyway, for the record, It took closer to 6 hours for the return journey. Along the same road. At roughly the same speed. It was still uncomfortable. It was still cramped and we were still annoyed with the whole predicament but, we were back. And just as ugly.

Needless to say Vientiane had not changed a great deal in the few days we had been away. The bearded males were still present. As were those culinary artists over at Sticky Fingers. And they still served a cracking Cumberland. In fact, the only thing that changed this time around was our accommodation, after we decided to opt for a room where the sheets were not coated in the various stains that a few years of action and the rather less than required cleaning measure of a quick scrape down brings about. We stayed at RD Guesthouse on the main road. RD, so you know, standing for ‘Relax and Dream’.

Anyway, two days, three nights, one round of national ‘Laos Day’ celebrations and several more visits to Stickies were completed before, with two 60 day Thai visa’s in hand, and, as if caught in a scene from Ground Hog Day, we found ourselves once again departing from our second home - otherwise known as the Vientiane northern bus station.

Next stop Luang Prabang…