We got up at 7.45am, showered and got ready for the trip to Vang Vieng. We assembled downstairs and the took took picked us up promptly at 8.30am. We asked him to stop in the market so we could buy sandwiches for lunch (we weren't going to risk finding out what the 'free lunch' on a bus was like in Laos). I ordered a coffee (that they make with condensed milk, no one has cows milk in this country) - the girl made me the biggest coffee I've ever seen in my life. I gave it back to her and asked for a smaller one: if I drank that much caffeine, I'd bounce around the inside of the bus for 7 hours!

We climbed back on the took took and arrived at the bus station 10 minutes later. We were going on a single decker bus and were disappointed; the double decker busses had more space, we were still going VIP though, at least we'd booked the seats in the front. We enquired about the toilet as one of the German girls needed to go, but apparently it was broken. They also had an issue with their fan: the vents had broken off and they had a constant stream on cold air aimed straight at their heads. Edd got up and found a windscreen cloth that they shoved into it to stop the air from coming out. It was quite an amusing sight as they then had a green towel with flowers dangling above their heads. Edd's armrest was also broken off, so he had nothing to lean on. We decided that VIP in Laos meant: Vaguely Important People; next time we should probably book the Super VIP bus, maybe then we'd get an on board toilet that works, air vents and armrests. It's the little things really.
We left promptly at 9.30am and stopped as we got to the edge of the parking lot: we were picking up locals. We all looked around the bus and there were no more seats. We never imagined they'd whip out plastic chairs and get them to sit in the aisle, but that's exactly what they did. A woman got on with a small child and attempted to put the child on Edd's lap; he looked at her as though she'd last her last marble and shook his head. He was all up for supporting the community, but there was no way he was sitting on a bus for 7 hours with someone else's kid on his lap.
The winding rounds worked their way up through the mountains and we nearly killed small children, goats, dogs and fellow motorists. At one point I gasped and covered my eyes: it looked as though we were going to go straight over the edge of the mountain and plummet to our deaths. The driver thought my reaction was quite amusing.

Edd spent a large amount of his time leaning over the man sitting on a plastic chair in the aisle, to counter-balance himself on the German girls seats. He marveld at the 'roads' we were travelling on, as the tar would suddenly just stop and we'd be on gravel for a while; then there'd be a long section of tarred road again that would suddenly just stop and become gravel. There was no pattern to it and it made no sense. A lot of it was like a virtual reality obstacle course, with no 'extra lives' if the driver made a wrong move. He laughed at a truck parked on the side of the road having it's engine changed; the mechanics had pitched a tent so they could shelter from the scorching sun. All the buses on the road drove with their engine covers open; Edd explained to me that it was to keep it cool. I thought it was because the lock was broken and it bounced open on its own.

At one point, there were 3 piles of gravel that had been dumped in the middle, and I mean in the middle of the road. The bus had to manouver between the piles and the mountain, I was convinced we were going to have to turn around, how that would happen though is anybodies guess, it's not like there was enough road for a bus to make a 3 point turn and head back the way it came!

The kid that nearly ended up on Edd's knee sat vomiting into a plastic bag; her mother had the bus stop in the middle of nowhere so she could get off and vomit behind it. We were glad to be sitting in the front so we could see where we were going; we both suffered terribly from motion sickness at the best of times travelling in buses and mini vans, today was no exception, but the smell of everyone's vomit was not helping our situation and we all administered Tiger Balm to underneath our noses.

Edd ate 1 half of his tuna and 1 half of his chicken baguette for breakfast. I'd had a crepe back in Luang Prabang so my breakie was done and dusted. We stopped to have a toilet break and had to pay 2000 kip to use the hole in the ground. I was not happy with life as I felt 2000 kip was a lot of money to squat with no toilet paper. We set off again 20 minutes later and I got my Mp3 player out to drown out the noise of the vomiting. I turned to Edd to ask him if he wanted his IPod that he'd put into my backpack and he was bright red. I mean, tomatoes belong in the fridge, are you feeling all right, take all your clothes off and jump in an ice bucket, kind of red. He said he felt all right and I insisted he take his jumper off and directed the aircon vents (we at least had vents) in his direction. He sat back and turned to me and said, 'ok, maybe I don't feel that great.' He said he felt like his head was a balloon and I lifted his shirt up: his chest had massive red blotches on it and it had started to work its way down his arms. His eyes had gone glassy and I started interrogating him about what he'd eaten, what he'd touched, where he'd been; he blurted out that eating his tuna sandwich had felt like he was eating stinging nettles, but he carried on eating it anyway! I personally did not have many nice things to say to this as he was clearly having a bad reaction to whatever was wrong with the sandwich. (Being allergic to tuna myself, I noticed similarities; his reaction was 100 times more severe though). All we had in our backpacks was diarrhea pills and paracetemol. Our drugs bag was under the bus, in the hold and we had no idea what was happening or what to do. I immediately regretted not buying a Laos sim card; we could have contacted his parents to find out what was going on if we had one!

I gave him a diarrhea pill and 2 paracetemol anyway and he swallowed them; he drank a substantial amount of water and we decided to wait 10 minutes to see if it got worse. If he felt any worse than he did now, we'd have to ask the driver to pull over and unpack the bags off the bus to find his and get our medical bag out. There was nowhere to stop on the winding mountainous roads; there was barely any road to travel on, never mind somewhere to pull over to!
His legs were all red and blotchy, but his reaction had peaked and he was starting to feel better. We stopped for lunch an hour later and at this point, he was back to normal. He whipped out his tuna sandwich and we all looked at him as though he was mad. He picked a piece of tuna out of his sandwich and put it in his mouth. He then got up with his bottle of water and walked over to a grassy patch: he spat it out and rinsed his mouth with the bottled water. He came back and announced it was definitely the tuna that tasted like stinging nettles; he ate the other half of his chicken sandwich and we bought mango with our food vouchers: this stop had a much more 'western' friendly restaurant and we could at least buy fruit, instead of food, with them. We threw the half a tuna sandwich in the bin and headed back for the bus.

About an hour later, we dropped the locals off in their village; we were all thrilled to see the back of them and their vomit. We carried on to Vang Vieng and arrived at 4.30pm; we were attacked by took took drivers and guesthouse fliers. The took tooks wanted 20 000kip for a 2 km ride; we all laughed at them and started to walk. 5 minutes down the road, the took tooks were asking for 5 000kip for the same ride; we'd joined another group of 4 people and all decided to continue walking, it wasn't that far anyway and none of us minded after the 7 hour journey.

We split up from our new companions and walked around the 'city' looking for somewhere to stay. An hour and a half later, we were still searching: there was no room at the inn. They were either fully booked, or fancy resorts wanting 400 000kip a night! We finally found a place that was far away enough from the partying area and Edd managed to haggle them down in price. We checked in for one night, as he wanted to do a trek that left the next day. We dumped our stuff, showered and headed for some food.

We found the tour company that offered 'The Vang Vieng Challenge' and got a brochure of information about it. Edd wanted the German girls to join us, but they weren't sure if it was something they were entirely keen on doing. We took the brochures with us and ended up at the Green restaurant. We ordered dinner and continued discussing the challenge: their main concern being lack of appropriate shoes and time. They were leaving from Vientiane on the 2nd to fly to Phucket, so their time in Laos was limited; we had until 9pm before the company closed for the day. We had our dinner and Edd had the best curry of his life! We'd resigned ourselves to them not coming and dropped the subject, they were probably going to stay in Vang Vieng for the time we were away and we asked what they would like to do there for the 2 days. They'd been speaking in German for a bit during dinner and then blurted out: 'we've decided to come with!' They did not get the response they were expecting as Edd and I just stared at them, lost for words. We then processed what they were saying and were ecstatic to have them with us! He left to let the company know and pay a deposit; we then discussed what to pack and what time we had to be ready. We walked back to our guesthouse excited for the next day's adventure and knew we had to get a good night sleep: the trek was classified as a 3 difficulty, 1: easy, 2: moderate, 3: hard. Edd said he'd never done a trek that was ever as difficult as it had been advertised, we'd all be fine.