We arrived in Vang Vieng on 29th April. The journey from Luang Prabang was fine, and we saw some cool villages and mountain scenery on the way. We arrived and lugged our bags into town and we a bit surprised by the total tourist trap we found. Not that it wasn't fun.

We stayed in Vang Vieng for a total of four days. We stayed in a basic hut with bathroom, which was fine. The town itself was very busy and full of travellers, and not exactly a good example of traditional Laos cultures. Many bars along the main strip show constant reruns of Friends and The Simpsons. It was nice to watch a bit of TV for a change, whilst enjoying a banana pancake.

One of the main attractions of Vang Vieng is tubing. This is where you rent a big inflatable ring, get driven a few miles upriver and then float back to the town. We expected a relaxing, quiet experience. When we got there we realised that tubing is in fact a pub crawl down the river, with makeshift bars all the way down. You would stop in one for a rum bucket then jump in your tube and float down to the next one. We met up with some people we travelled with from Thailand and had a good time. Most of the bars have huge swings, ziplines and slides into the river, which were great fun. We didn't get very far though, and when it got dark we picked up our tubes, walked to the road and got a tuk tuk back to town.

We had a couple of nights out in Vang Vieng, most of the bars have to shut about 11ish. After that you had to cross the bamboo bridge to one of the late bars. They were good for chilling out in hammocks with friends and had an Ipod on the bar so you could pcik your own music. The barman showed Alan how to climb bamboo. He wasn't very good.

Apart from tubing and watching TV there wasn't too much to do in Vang Vieng. Alan did join in a football game with some local kids on a couple of days. He enjoyed it but said it was a bit mad. On the 4th May we lef to to Vientiane, the capital.