Vang Vieng has left me broken, battered & bruised. I survived Tubing, Happy Pizza & a 45k mountain bike ride (not my decision FYI) and we have had the most amount of fun ever here!

Tubing is the best invention ever - what could be better than a pub crawl down the river in a rubber ring, stopping off at riverside bars with Zip Lines & Swings to jump off into the water?!! Obviously not the safest of sports, especially with every bar dishing out free shots of Lao Lao whisky, but so much fun! Throwing yourself into the river whilst drunk is the best game ever! It was like a giant adventure playground for adults; a bit like Glasto on the river minus the bands! Amazing! The first day tubing was total carnage as you can imagine & once we arrived back into town we went for Pizza, which was completely insane & left us in hysterics for the rest of the evening & having crazy adventures on Indiana Jones style islands! The following day we went back to the tubes for a slightly more chilled out repeat of the previous days antics! It was nice to just float down the river & admire the amazing views as we missed this on the first day thanks to the booze! I really wish I could take the tube every day!

After 2 days of tube fun, we decided (whilst drunk) that we should really explore some of the surrounding scenery. Vang Vieng is a beautiful spot surrounded by huge limestone mountains, which are home to lots of interesting caves. When we booked the trip of doom, I was under the impression that we would be cycling for an hour into the country, we'd go see some caves, have lunch, go kayaking (or tubing) then return home. How wrong was I?! Turns out that we had booked a 45k mountain bike trip, which was horrific. It had been raining so the path was literally a stream, it was like riding through the muddy fields of Glastonbury! Vish & I only had our havianas on which became so slippery, that I fell off the bike 3 times into the mud & Vish fell off & cut all his foot open! The cave wasnt much better, we literally had to scale a cliff face up jagged limestone rocks, with no ropes or equipment. Then when we got to the cave we had one torch between us & a few candles! The guide took us further into the cave than was safe, which was amazing to see all the limestone stalagmites, but f***ing dangerous! Typically, I fell over & have an attractive purple bruise on my arse & the whole day was a total disaster!

I am certainly carrying the scars of Vang Vieng! It has been a mixture of fun & trauma! Yesterday was definately a form of punishment for all the fun we had on the tubes, but it was definately worth it!