Week 10- Laos (Vang Veing) Day 4

Today we travelled from Luang Probang to Vang Veing by bus. We got up earlier so we could have breakfast at the hostel before we left and then we were picked up around 9am. The bus journey wasn't too bad but it was really bumpy! We went on the new road so it was a lot quicker, it's so new there wasn't even anywhere to stop so the girls had to go to the toilet on the side of the road haha- when a girls gotta go a girls gotta go!

Once we got to Vang Veing we were dropped at the bus station and there was no means of transport insight so we ended up putting our rucksacks on and walking down the road in the boiling midday heat, the problem was we weren't even certain we were walking in the right direction. Luckily after about 10 minutes of walking (and sweating) a tuk tuk came down the road (full of everyone from our bus!) and it also picked us up and dropped us to our hostel. We were all crammed in like sardines!

We checked into our hostel and our room was nice (with air con) but the owners didn't seem that friendly. We were all really hungry so we headed out to the backpackers hostel for lunch! I managed to get chicken nuggets so obviously I was extremely happy! We booked our bus to Vientiane which is our next destination and went on the search for the famous tubing!

We were up for trying out the tubing but weren't too keen on getting drunk and drowning! So we didn't stop at any of the bars. It also looked like hard work trying to stop, they threw a plastic bottle on a string to you and basically pulled you in. When we first started there seemed to be quite a current, although, by the end we was just bobbing along. There weren't as many people as we were expecting but the scenery was absolutely beautiful. It took us about 2 hours in total to float down the river (I did get caught up at one point and nearly got left behind). The water was quite shallow so every now and again we had to lift our bums up or they got a big bump! All in all it was a fun afternoon. We can see how it used to be really dangerous and why the majority of the bars got closed down. The water was very shallow so anyone jumping in was likely it hit a rock. By the end we thought we were never going to see the finish sign and it had started to rain so that was hilarious.

We were all soggy wet by the end so dropped our rings back to the shop and headed to the hostel for showers. We decided to walk back into town for dinner and all ended up having spaghetti bolognese... Very Asian... yet super yummy! We then went on our regular hunt for magnum gold ice creams, Gemma bought a waterproof bag and I got some shorts. It was then time to head back to the hostel for a good nights sleep!