The bus ride to vang vien- hell!!!! It was beautiful scenery through the mountains but no good for motion sickness! Managed to no spew (phew) but came very close a couple of times! We arrived to the bus station and got a tuk tuk to our hotel. It was ok, nothing special but fine. We then went for a wander to find a cave that was close to town. When we got there it was closed (we missed it by 5 mins!) so we went for a swim in the lagoon at the bottom instead. The water was really clean and clear and really cold! There were some local kids swimming too, they enjoyed splashing us and having their picture taken (they loved posing then laughing at their pictures!). There was also a Laos family who thrusted their baby onto me for a photo- the baby had no nappy just a bare bum but was ok thankfully! We then went back into town and booked a tour for tomorrow and had dinner. Nothing too exciting, was so many places to choose from for dinner but all of them are just empty. Vang Vien is famous as a party town where people go 'tubing' in the river where they float along in a tube and stop at the various pubs and clubs on the banks of the river. In January this year almost all of the pubs and clubs were shut down. Over 20 tourists died doing this over the years not to mention hundreds of other serious injuries. Basically it's caused by bogan travellers drinking too much, taking drugs, swimming in moving fresh water and using various slides, Tarzan swings and flying foxes into the water whilst off their faces. Now since it has been closed down the place is a ghost town with so many hotels and restaurants geared up for party people and no one in them. We spoke to some locals about it, they miss the business however most are in agreement they prefer it now and the travellers that come are actually interested in the place and the culture rather than just getting drunk every day.
The next day we went on a tour to some caves, they were ok, was supposed to be a hiking tour, not really any hiking at all! We also went to the Water cave where the cave is full of water so u have to enter it on a tube and pull your way along through it. Was pretty cool but a bit chilly! The next part of the day was tubing! We got in our tubes and headed down the river. There are only 3 pubs now on the shore so very tame! It didnt take long to het to a pub where there were little kids throwing out a rope to pull u in. not rast to do, you had to then clamber up some rocks, was hard to do even sober! The fist one was fun with lots of games (table tennis, bocci etc) we had a couple of drinks and met a kiwi couple, they were good fun and we ended up tubing with them for the rest of the day. The river was really slow because it was dry season so it gave us lots of time to just lay back and soak up the beautiful scenery, and also at times do frantic paddling with your thongs to catch up! We went to one more pub then bought a beer from a guy on the bank yelling out 'beer Lao! Beer Lao!' Selling the local brew. In the end we had to paddle back as quick as we could to make sure we got the tubes back in time. Unfortunately just at the end Chris dropped his underwater camera into the muddy river never to be seen again! That night we met up with our new friends for dinner, unfortunately I started feeling a bit sick though so went to bed quite early.
The next day we hired bikes and rode out to the blue lagoon. Glad we got mountain bikes and gears, the road was very bad! The countryside was beautiful, lots of villages and mountains to look at. We got to the lagoon, a really blue river with lots of ropes and trees to jump off into the water. Chris had fun with that! Also visited a cave there, was ok but quite a hike to it in thongs! We then had lunch at a place near it called saelao project (www.saelaoproject.com) where they have a project with an organic and sustainable farm for their restaurant. They have a school for local students to learn English and provided lots of bikes for the kids to use to come to it. They teach the locals sustainable ways of living, as with the rush of tourism for tubing the vegetation was ruined to use for hotels and restaurants in the area. It's a great project that relies on volunteers, check out the website! And the food was fantastic!
That night we ate at kangaroo sunset bar, great food! It was mayday so all the locals were getting boozy and having parties, fun to watch!