We left Luang Prabang after a heavy last night with the boys (Nims, Rik, Dan, Matt and Thomasino) and we travelled by a VIP bus to our next destination Vang Vieng. Going through the mountains and rainforests of Laos the scenery was amazing, everyone said it was beautiful and people where taking loads of pictures, apart from us as we were all hungover and slept throughout most of the trip at the back of the bus. Some things never change.

We got to Vang Vieng and we stayed at a Guesthouse called Tony's at the end of the town, which means it was at the end of the street, the walk to the centre was about 5 minutes. We paid US$1 each. Result! The first day we spent playing killer pool and meeting loads of new people, Aussies, Irish, Kiwi's, Germans, it was really cool. Most of the bars on the strip are very similar. They have long sofa beds, with pillows and a head rest where punters can buy Beer Lao and on a big screen watch the entire series of Friends. There was about 6 bars that did the same thing, so as you can imagine we were fairly occupied.

The next day we decided to do something that Lao and especially Vang Vieng is quite famous for, tubing. This basically involves you sitting on a round rubber dingy and floating down stream in a lake with bars located at each side of the river, each time you want to hit the bar, you paddle to the bar, drop your tube at the front and go and have a drink. This is where we met more people and had a really good time. Now the problem with this is the more pubs you stop at the more drunk you get, and me being a non swimmer i realised half way through this wasn't such a great idea.

By the time i got to the fourth bar, i was a bit drunk (as was everyone else) and it suddenly dawned upon me that we where 45 minutes from the end and to make things more interesting the sun was going down. Most of the sane people left early to get back before they were too drunk and in sunlight. Us six along with a couple of Irish lads were the only thick ones to stick around. So there we are very drunk entering the lake in pitch black trying to find our way home. By this time i was petrified, i grabbed on to Rik's and Thomas's dingy's and told them both to row.

After 30 minutes of floating in the water we heard Dan and Matt, who were ahead of us, shouting at us to come to this big whitehouse. After 20 minutes of trying we eventually climbed the rocks and got into this whitehouse, which was owned be a very nice Lao family, who invited us in, feeded us buffalo skin (very nice) and sold us Beer Lao. Unfortunately for them they also had a Karoake machine, so before you know it there were 4 Englishmen, 1 South African, 2 Irish, 1 Scot and 1 Italian singing our hearts out. It was so bad that the little girl of the house, closed her ears and booed us throughout. We then got a Tuk Tuk from there back to our Guesthouse.

The next day we just chilled out, watched friends and did a bit of shopping i.e. flip flops, shades etc. We decided even though we liked Vang Vieng it would be good for our wallets or our liver's if we stayed longer, so we booked out bus out of there for the next day straight to the Capital, Vientiane.

That night we went to a place called Smile Bar, which was by the riverside, but bit of a mission to get to. It involved, walking through the dark forests, over a rocky / broken bridge and over a couple of fences. But when we got there it was amazing. There was a bar made out of bamboo sticks, hammocks in each corner and a bonfire right in the middle, with loads of people dancing around the bonfire. Once again we met loads of people and had a great time.

Vang Vieng was an amazing experience, it was just what we needed. It's good after all this travelling and doing Cultural things to just stay in a place where you can meet loads of people doing the same thing as you and share stories. I will never forget it.