Day 83 -

We left Luang Prubang today at 7am to head to Vang Vieng.

The so-called 'VIP' bus that we were traveling on was not up to much at all! I right old banger with rattly chairs and a smelly clutch!

Anyway the journey was the most scariest ride I've ever been on and Anth slept right through it, lucky b*****!!

We had to travel over mountains to get to Vang Vieng and the bus driver had no mercy. driving over cliff edges at what felt like 100 miles per hour without breaking on corners, I was scared s**tless!

At one point the driver didn't judge the corner at all and the whole bus skidded across the road! The driver just laughed, put it back in gear and was off again - horrible! I am a rubbish passenger at the best of times so I was holding on for dear life, not that that would have helped if we had of crashed!

The only part of the journey that I was truly grateful that I had got onto this bus was that when we reached the top of the mountain, the view we saw was just breathtaking. As we were so high we were above the clouds so looking over the view we could just see tips of other mountains emerging through them.

Finally we arrived in Vang Vieng, Anth had woken up just before and clocked the view of the mountains too. When we got off the bus I had serious white knuckles and Anth had a sore neck from sleeping funny!

We had to literally stop and just stare at the scenery in front of us. The terrain around us was coloured by orange dirt tracks surrounded by deep green mountains in the distance. I can probably say it is one of the most pleasing views that we've seen so far.

We took a tuk tuk to our new guesthouse and once settled, set off to explore the small town. Luckily it was small because we didn't get much further than the Aussie Bar where got a really cheap meal and even better, some really cheap alcohol!

We stayed here for a few hours and then booked a tour for tomorrow which included trekking, temples, tubing and caves!

Day 84 -

Our tour started at 9am so we got up really early so that we could have breakfast and I could buy a new pair of shorts.

We drove for about an hour until we got to our first stop. We found out that we were touring with another couple but it turned out that they had an argument that morning and weren't speaking to one another! Just our luck! So Anth ended up talking to the fella and I ended up talking to the girl!

Our first stop was a Buddhist Temple hidden in a cave - and that's about as good as it got.

Next was to go underground into a massive cave. We had to wear head torches because the cave was pitch black inside. The ground was also damp in some areas so we had to watch our footing so we didn't stand in a puddle of deep mud.

Before our trip we had been advised to wear trainers or sensible shoes as flip flops were not strong enough and too slippy.

The lad from the non-talking couple (can't remember his name so I'll just call him Dave) hadn't listened very well to the shoe instructions and had turned up with his flip flops on - big mistake.

The tour guide, Anth and I entered the cave firstly with the girl (Jasmine I think) coming up behind us and Dave at the back.

The floor of the cave was certainly slippy, I had a little wobble myself, Dave on the other hand couldn't have stood up straight if you'd paid him!

Once he had finally composed himself, we set off deeper into the cave. Next thing, splodge! Dave had skidded and his foot had landed in a great big muddy puddle. Anth straight away prodded me and mouthed a 'haaaaaaa' to me which of course set me off.

After Dave had yet again managed to stand up straight, now with a very muddy foot, we set off again. No more than 3 seconds had passed until splodge, splodge, splodge! Anth and I turned around to find Dave slipping and sliding around the cave like fricken Happy Feet managing to stand in every single puddle he possible could.

WELL, that was me then and Anth for that matter. I had to turn and face the wall to try and drown out my giggles and Anth had to go back to the mouth of the cave! Honestly you should have seen him! Every time he stood up, woop there he went again!

I tell you, he was flapping around that cave like a fish out of water. I reckon the guide was dying to laugh and even Jasmine for that matter. Every time she tried to help him up, he (being a typical man) shoved her off as if he didn't need her help but the force of doing that sent him flying again!

His flip flop strap had broken and he was covered in think, brown, gooey mud.

I was then in too much of a fit of hysterics and had to leave the cave. When I walked past Happy Feet he fell again which made me worse and an uncontrollable grunt popped out so I pretended to cough to try and disguise my laughs.

Anth was still at the mouth of the cave and you know when someone is laughing so much that they look like a statue with their mouth gaping open well that was what Anthony looked like and of course this didn't help me control myself either.

Once we made it outside HA HA HA HA HA we laughed and laughed and laughed! I had to sit on my foot at one point to stop myself from peeing my pants!

Just as we started to pull ourselves together, a rather flushed Happy Feet emerged from the cave covered in mud with one flip flop on and the other broken one in his hand!

Ahh, it's always so much fun when it's someone else's tribulation rather than your own!

Oh and by the way, apart from watching Happy Feet mud wrestle, we did see some of the cave and it was pretty interesting, but nothing compares.....

The next part of the tour was to go Cave Tubing. This basically involved going into a deep cave filled with water whilst sitting on a huge rubber ring, I think the ring was made from the inside of a tractor tyre.

It was so much fun! The water was freezing and it was pitch black but once you got deeper into the cave, the water got a lot warmer and somehow you could see better too...

The journey took about 40 minutes to get into the cave and back out again and the whole experience made us even more excited about tubing down the river later on.

After the cave we had lunch then set off for an hours walk through the beautiful countryside. We then got picked up and taken to the river where we set off on our tubes.

Ahead of us was what looked like an amusement park on either side of the river. There were slides and zip slides, rope swings and loads of bars for about a quarter of a mile down.

We stopped at a bar for a drink straight away and Anth went on the zip slide a few times. I was too chicken and much preferred to watch whilst sipping a vodka and coke on the bank.

Anth and I both wanted to stay and visit every bar but as Jasmine and Happy Feet were still on non-speaking terms and were not drinking, we felt too tight to make them stay on our accord so set off again missing out on all the action. How nice are we?!

The trip down the river was really nice but you really had to use your arm muscles to which I have none. Also because I am so short, I couldn't reach the water very well from my tube without practically getting out of it. Fortunately for me, Anth came to the rescue once again and let me hold onto his foot while he dragged me along!

Afterwards, once we had been back to the hotel to shower and change, we went out for a few drinks and a meal - we didn't bother asking Happy Feet and grumpy along though!