Currently writing this on the plane to Thailand from Luang Prabang, having been to Vang Vieng just before hand.

Vang Vieng was awesome, ended up spending a bit of extra time there then expected after I came down with my first bout of travellers gastro for about 3 days. Vang Vieng is a little community essentially designed for the backpacker around its main attraction tubing.

There is plenty of other stuff to do such as caving, hiking, mountain bike riding and rock clibing but I gave most of that a miss whilst I was crook. Ended up having to go to the pharmacist at the hospital to get some drugs to sort me out. I did go for a run up to the top of mountain one day early in the morning and saw a cave in there which was coo as well.

Tubing is awesome, I think we counted about 16 bars down this stretch of a couple of kms of river with music blaring from each one, other revellers getting amongst it on the dance floor, flying foxes, free shots of whiskey, massive swings and mud pits. The first day I got a bit carried away with the free shots and ended up ridiculously and probably unsafely considering I was tubing down a river. Showed off abit and did a couple of big horse-ies off this massive swing which not many people had seen before and were shocked to see I was all right when I got up. Ended up pulling the pin on tubing the whole way so got out and took the bush track which was a bad idea considering I had no shoes on, cut the s*** out of my feet. The next couple of days was spent listening to tunes, swinging in a hammock and trying to control my guts, probably the most scenic chilled out place I have ever had gastro haha so all wasn’t bad.

Hit up tubing another couple of times and continued to meet some more really cool people. The night life in Vang Vieng is pretty insane, the type of place where you can get a normal menu or a happy one as well. Had a couple of pretty loose nights there as well drinking whisky buckets and dancing the night away in these outdoor bars which was good fun.

I spent most of my time there with the same base crew I have been travelling with for 2 weeks from Hanoi.

I’ve made a real good mate in Chris, a pommy feller, I have been travelling with and we caught the bus up to Luang Prabang which was a nightmare of a ride, even though it only went for about 6 hours it was shocking and got a bit hairy when we pulled over to throw water on the brakes to cool them down in the middle of a mountain range.

Chris and I met these awesome aussie birds from Perth on the way and ended up deciding to go and stay at the same place as them, spending the majority of the last 3 days with them, whilst in Luang Prabang we checked out a palace/ museum that the old head honcho’s used to live in and went up this temple/ wat to see the sunset with a big group of us. The standard night involved a few beers and a feed but was starting to enjoy not being drunk all the time so just to chill out was cool.

Yesterday, the 3 aussie birds, Chris and I went and checked out this waterfall which was beautiful, wait for the photos and had a swim in a natural watering hole just to the side of the waterfalls. There was also a black bear sanctuary out there which was cool to see a couple of bears going toe to toe and others lounging around. Took it pretty easy again last night because this morning we got up early to give alms to the monks that walk around the streets at 6am. Basically just an offering off food to the monks, we bought some sticky rice of this old duck there and as they walk past you put a bit in each of there urn type pots. I don’t know about you but I wouldn’t really want rice that has come from the grubby mitts of the filthy locals and dirty backpackers.

Anyway like I said before on the way to Chang Mai Thailand, just about there actually, where im looking forward to doing some chilling by myself, getting a few massages, waiting for Chris to get here then might get up in to the hills and do some treking, want to head over to Pai to check it out as well cause apparently it’s a little hippy village of 3000 people and real chilled out.

On the 14th the Thais along with Laos’s celebrate the Laos new year which is basically a massive water fight with the locals for a couple of days which will be cool as well.

Got to go, coming in to land, speak soon

Ben