(29 October)

4 of us had decided to get up early before we left for Vang Vieng to see the Buddha Park! Anna, Laura, Maria and I left at half 7 and got a tuk tuk for about 45 mins outside the city. The Buddha park was really cool, just loads if buddies everywhere!! Haha. There was a big cauldron type thing that you could go inside which was a bit creepy but awesome, it was stuffed full of buddhas and had 3 floors! We were really glad we had made the effort. We spent about an hour there and headed back to town in time to grab brunch from the bakery (my first baguette in Laos...and a donut! Amazing) before jumping on the bus to Vang Vieng. I managed to not buy the big bag of yesterday's donuts at reduced prices...pretty impressive I thought!

This journey wasn't too bad I think, was mainly reading the book I had borrowed from Anna.

We arrived into Vang Vieng around 2 or 3, but for some reason I was in a horrendous mood when we got there! I have no idea why, the place we were staying was lovely, we all had individual cabins, and the journey had been fine! I think maybe the homesickness had been set off from seeing Laura's friends and realising I wouldn't really be able to see anyone for so long! I reckon the tiredness from travelling etc was all catching up as well - most of us were in a really funny mood that day which didn't help! I was pretty indecisive for an hour or so, went to lunch with Claire and Maria but really wasn't hungry so went back to the hotel, and read for a bit, tried to lift my mood! It wasn't really working so went to go for a walk and ran into Laura and Anna cycling so joined them on a cycle which was lovely! The countryside I gorgeous there, and we cycled around most of the town. It's a really funny wee place, it seems to have only done well for itself because of the attraction of tubing! So it is quite westernised, loads of backpackers, yummy mega cheap baguette and fruit shake stalls all over the place, and down by the river loads and loads of bars, a lot of them showing episodes of "friends" and "family guy"... It's really a bit bizarre!

The sun went down and we left our bikes back and had a break before meeting the group at 7 to discuss what to do the following day. There is quite a lot to do there are it has loads of caves to visit and you can go caving/rock climbing/kayaking/tubing etc. This was a bit of a melt to be honest. It was a pity because we only had one day, and so could only really do tubing or an activity day. Tubing is basically the main attraction at Vang Vieng, you basically get a big tyre ring and float down the river and there is loads of bars, and as you float past they throw out rope and pull you in to the bar! (health and safety nightmare I know, sorry mum but it was awesome!!). Anna, Rory, Lisa and I had always been definitely doing the tubing, as, to be perfectly honest, it was the only reason I'd ever heard of Laos! But some of the others wanted to do an activity day, and seemed to take it a bit personally when we said no if it didn't include tubing...i think it was maybe because they had negotiated a group discount if we all did it, but we weren't up for it at all. So there was a little bit of tension until that was sorted out and the other 5 had booked their day. I think it was a lot to do with everyone being pretty tired that day.

After that was sorted, I went with Anna and Laura for dinner and had a burger! Yummy! Totally fallen off the wagon on the eating locally front... We ran into Sarah from my china tour and some of her new group (she is on the same tour as us but a day ahead!) and that was really nice having a chat and hearing about the tubing! Think that helped as we were starting to doubt our decision because it had been run down quite a bit by some people.