Vang Vieng is a beautiful little town up in the mountains, with the Nam Song river running through it. We found ourselves a nice little hut by the river for $3 a night so we were happy! We ended up staying for about 6 days, soaking up the scenery, either from a kayak, a tractor inner tube or the top of a mountain. Most days we would get a tuk tuk to about 10km upriver, before floating back down again by various modes of transport! The Lao people have all been so friendly so far, and are not as persistent sellers as elsewhere! All the kids shout sabadee, or hi, everytime you go past, and seem to actually want to talk to you even if you aren't offering money, which is refreshing!

The inner tubes were really relaxing, and a cool way to take in the surroundings - really steep mountains to one side and paddy fields to the other. We were lucky that our first few days were sunny so the cold water wasn't too bad! As you got closer to the town, the locals had set up bars along the riverside, which had swing ropes and zip wires into the river - awesome fun!

On our kayaking trip we also took in some caves, which the locals used as temples as they couldn't afford to build them, which explained to us why so many of the caves we have been to have large Buddha statues in! We also went to the Water Cave, which had an opening onto the river which was less than a metre high. There was just enough room to go in if you were floating on a tube though, and you could pull yourself along a rope to get further in. We then walked over a shallow section before getting back into the tubes and paddling all the way to the end of the cave. We paddled over a warm spring which was nice as the water in the cave was pretty cold! Luckily we all had headtorches so we had enough light to see even though half of them died!

One day we hired some 'normal' bikes - we werent paying the extra dollar for mountain bikes! - and took in some more caves in the sides of the mountains and also the Blue Lagoon. We had high hopes for the lagoon, especially after riding the bikes for a couple of hours in blazing sun with no gears! Unfortunately it was a really small lagoon, but it had swings into the water and a big tree which branched out across the water to jump off, which was all we needed to cool down! It was the weekend and fairly popular with the friendly locals, who loved the fact that we were keen to get involved with the swings etc, and kept offering us Lao whisky - nice!

Seeing as we've become avid trekkers in the last few months, and after reading about an amazing oasis in the mountains called Secret Eden in the Lonely Planet, we decided to trek into the mountains one day. We kept checking with our guide if we were actually going to Secret Eden as we weren't convinced, and he kept reassuring us yes, but later! We were the only people in the group, and found out why fairly soon into the trek, as we headed straight up the almost vertical mountain face! The lowered fitness levels showed as we sweated and panted our way up and over the mountain, to a fantastic view of a valley encircled by mountains, completely cut off from the roads and pretty much the rest of the country, but with a few huts belonging to the remaining Hmong hilltribe people! We had lunch in the valley and then realised we had to climb over a mountain on the other side of the valley to get back out again! At one point it did actually seem like we were rock climbing, just minus the rope and harness, it was definitely extreme trekking! We scaled two mountains, crossed two rivers, went through a cave, dense forest and jungle before geting near civilisation again! Our guide had to use a machete to get us through some of the undergrowth! It was a tiring day but definitely worth it for the awesome views, to see how isolated the Hmong people were and for the sense of achievement at the end of it! That evening we definitely deserved our daily stop at the bakery for cake! Vang Vieng is also a cool place for just chilling out in the bars. We lay on the cushions for a looong time watching episodes of Friends!