Arrival, check, Accomodation, check, heck loads of whiskey buckets and cheap booze, oh my goodness gracious yes, not to mention snorkle bombs! This was our first 4 hours of Vang Vieng and to tell you the truth it can only get better!

Q Bar was destination one for dinner, entertained by Jeremy one of the canadian staff working for the bar and a little later on 2 dread headed dudes carrying a new beer bong contraption, they called the snorkle bomb - see the pictures, we will be lining one up for Marie Patton in Italy that is for sure!!! Of course it also only took us minutes to get into the Vangvieng trends and doned each other (and the bathroom walls) with crude remarks and NZ signs in vivid all over, as well as snorkle bomb tallys! We were joined with fellow van riders Chole and Skye as well as our new besties Owen and Daf. Daf fulfilled his bet with Grace (made in Luang Prabang) that if she wore her newly acquired bowling shoes out on the first night in Vang vieng, he would shout her booze all night, so he was aptly named Grace's drinks b****. They also indulged in a bowling bar skulling race each, although we have no photos to prove who won, I can, based on previous drinking experiences with the Welsh say that it would have been without a doubt Mrs G-ravy. From here it was off to Bucket bar - for buckets, except Owen got a bit carried away and ordered one each, fari to say we probably shouldn't have even indulged in one sip each - but we did and hence the drunken photos. To get into the bar you have to walk over the river...on a dodgy bamboo bridge much better achieved when you have had 6 snorkle bombs as opposed to none, builds confidence! This palce was madness, Daf and Owen had a monkey bar wrestle comp - Owen took out the title - or at least thats how it appears in the photos, memory sort of draws a blank, no one would chanllenge G-raict so she cained herself up by swinging accross the bars herself on her second jump she made it to the end. So after a few briuses for all a few pairs of broken and lost sandles we all made it home alive with a few getting rides on Owen.

Day two, oh dear a few sore heads - Abbey couldn't actually muster a drink the whole day except for water! So as advised we tubed every day - not really tubing as such - in the low season it is not that great to tube as the river is so low (tubing consists of riding on a tyres inner tube down a river getting pulled in by ropes to bars that line the riverside). So instead you just swim or float down. All the best bars are grouped together and you all just get tuk tuks there for 10,000kip each person. Most bars have either a zipline/flying fox where you end up landing in the water, preferrably feet first, or a giant swing like a trapeze, both of these you can opt to go singles or doubles. We hung out at the river each day usually with the brit gals chole, skye, Laure, Alex and Lucy as well as the many people we met. Each day we were spray painted by the staff that work there and vivided up with variuos pictures and words, most of which we had no control over and some are recomended to be read by immature audiences only - old people cover your eyes. Here is a brief or highlights of each day.

DAY 1 - Gettngin the refreshing water was the best cure or semi cure for all hangovers! Free whiskey shots at all bars! Abbey spray painting her face green - basically looked like shrek. Meeting a guy who had a tattoo of a set of scales, a skeleton with flames. We said to him this must have been a drunken tattoo to a - get a skeleton and b have it with flames, and this is the story that followed (read in an american accent)"So I always thought that like for my first tattoo I would like get something that was really meaningful. But it was my 18th birthday and of course I was drunk, I decided to get the scales for my Libra sign, after looking at it, I thought it was a bit boring, so I said to they guy, hey go on, chuck in a skeleton, so he did, and then I looked at it again, and I said, hey why is this skeleton wearing a turben, so then I said chuck in some fricken flames man" s***e it was funny we were crying with laughter and repeated this story amoungst ourselves all day - he saw us the next day and all he could say was "oh its you b******s". It was our first day to trial out all zip lines and swings - Abbey first on zip line and Bjy first on swing and Bjy and Gravey first double on swing. At the end of the day Grace and Bjy thought they were invincible - I think it was just the whiskey infultrating their brains. We discovered bars that had free french fries - BOom! We discovered the best baguettes in the world riverside. Awesome couldn't wait to get back there and do it all again - words cant descrie, i hope our photo's can (although non taken day one only 2 & 3.

That night we were shattered we ate tea on return from town, at a restaurant that was playing family guy (many have either family guy or friends reruns playing all day, pretty funny especially after drinking all day) then home for a shower, we couldn't muster the energy to go out after our huge night previous so we tucked up with HBO and laxed our ready with anticipation of Day 2 tubing.

DAY 2

Raedy and rearing to go hit the river at 1:30pm eager to get into the Lao Vodka buckets and whiskey shots. We heard some guys talking in Kiwi accent and beleived that they mentioned something abut Jerry Collins so we dressed Grace's arm up in vivid stating "Southland NZ, Ranfurley shield holders, Boom!" or something to that effect and showed it to them as we floated down the river - hahah turns out they were from Christchurch, hahaha we loved it|! Dominated the free chips again and hit up the second bar that was advertising them also, woah, big mistake or not - every 30 seconds we were offered and obliged in drinking shot for shot with the local bar guy who was def a few sheets in the wind when we arrived but man he could knck them back, he would haul you out of the water with one hand and pass you a whiskey shot with his other!

We were feeling pretty good on return from the river so we showered up and went for the best dinner to date - shared a cabanara, irish stew (Aunty Erin will love that - Abbey enjoying a stew) and ribs, mmmm succulent ribs. We then went to met up with the Britt gals accross the road. Here we met a waiter who was quickly named mosquito as he buzzed around us making mosquito noises, pretty humerous. Abbey challenged a guy for antehr arm wrestle and he actually looked like he was gonna lose too, it was a struggle and a few minutes before he pulled away for the win. Abbey also got her second proposal for the trip from mosquito, but declined, yet again. We called the night a night and headed home. Britt mischeviously stayed in town whilst Abbey walked G-racist home and she got all of the river crew to sign a tubing top for her Bday tomorrow! On arrival at the guesthouse we asked for the key - No key - Abbey swore that she had put it before leaving, but it couldn't be found - a bit of an uproar was had between us all, them saying our friend had it us saying we handed it in, he finally let us in saying fricken this and fricken that, Abbey pushed him out of the room saying that we will await his apology in the morning when he finds our key. Turns our Britt had it, boy did we have our tail between our legs in the morning but all was well, he kindly blamed it on the booze which ruined our memory. Next morning Britt took a photo of Abbey handing in the key for evidence the manager thought it was pretty funny tho.

DAY 3 - Grace's Birthday

Breaky was yum but struggled to get it down. Gave grace her new singlet which she doned with pride, loved it and hit the river. hightlight - Gravy's Birthday. The day was much the same as before obviously with celebrations for Grace's birthday and mud volleyball whcih landed the gals with many a bruise and filthy stinking marmites (which we wore everyday tubing!!!!) Check out the pictures. It was soo hard to stand there was certainly no rallying of the ball back on fourth to be had as no one could hit it back.

Showered up and had indian for tea, hit ohlala bar for a bucket and card drinking games, then down to bucket bar and sunset but as town was quite and we felt like we had celebrated Grace's birth for the past threee days we hit bed about 11:30 recovery mode pre big travelling days to Full moon party in Thailand!

We bused to Vientiane - Abbey lost iPod - oops, then trained accross the border, onto a new train overnight to Bangkok, which at 8pm we got to have a man come and transfer our seats into beds with mattresses and sheets and pillows and blankets, he was quicker than Marie Patton and Annette North even if they teamed up and he was single handedly making up over 100beds, which were bunks!! We video'd it so you may get to see it yet! (and get some tips anny and Maz)