Slumming It

Another day, another bus journey. The Australians wimp out - they can't take it. They announce their plans to take a flight to Vientiane and meet us there in 2 days time. We take pains to conceal our excitement. I travelled in their bus for an hour yesterday disobeying all Happy Bus Guidelines and Official Directives and found that they could occasionally rouse themselves from their front seat torpor sufficiently to adjust their seat recline and turn the aircon up, down and sideways without any reference to their fellow passengers, who didn't break their silent and vacant stares from the passing countryside, possibly for fear of committing involuntary manslaughter.

So we set off for Vang Vieng where we are promised caves, beer, rafting, beer, rafting with beer and general scenic views. What we are not prepared for is the dusty, shabby one street town that bears more than a passing resemblance to the poor man's Khao San Road. If you are 20, like beer and hanging around in a skimpy swimming costume eating 'happy' pizza (a reference to extra oregano I think) this is your sort of place. If you prefer a more solid form of swimwear that pulls everything in and prefer wearing your sarong as a sort of tent, this probably isn't the place for you.

I take a boat trip out to a cave with a Kath (there are two Kath's, Australian and travelling together, they live in Happy Bus with us) for a swim in a cave. What the tour guide has omitted to tell us is that the swimming cave is only accessible via a long walkway, on one side is the pool, on the other a sheer drop. The walkway is the width of a medium size house brick. Kath has recently had a hip replacement, so we shuffle along inelegantly, occasionally being prodded by our boatman who seems to find it all quite hilarious. At the end of the walkway we balance on a slightly larger brick to strip off and dive in. I am thankful for having had the foresight to put on my cossie already as changing facilities are extremely limited - perhaps one extra brick in an emergency. We jump in, swim around a bit and so does the boatman, although he resurfaces every few minutes to light another cigarette and mime being cold (he's shown us the cave now, he wants to go home).

Getting out involves clambering back up onto the brick, another inelegant process. The boatman seems concerned by the amount of brickdust and leaf mould that has adhered to us as we climbed out and makes a special effort to wipe it off my bikini. I am hemmed in on the other side by Kath and don't have sufficient balance to stay upright and bat away his pawing hands without knocking all of us back in the water, so I hastily manage to pull on some clothes and we shuffle off.

We returned to the town where a full scale boat race was going on in honour of the end of Buddhist Lent. Lots of noise, music, dancing and yelling at the contestants. In the evening the locals come down to the riverside and place small candlelit offerings on the water to float off to who knows where, it's very picturesque. We learn that the winners of the final should have been penalised for a false start but, being Asia, no-one could be bothered to re-start the race, so the other team were awarded the winners trophy.

At the start of the Laos tour we were reasonably up-beat about the standard of accommodation. Unfortunately once we were away from the main towns the rooms have become shabbier, damper and more squalid. Luckily for me, Brian has stopped suggesting we maintain this level of travel for any longer than is strictly necessary, but I can tell he is impressed by the room rates. If only he enjoyed sleeping on slabs of concrete with damp house bricks for pillows, how happy he would be.