We left Luang Prabang on the 9.30am bus to Vang Vieng. We boarded the bus and thought it was quite comfortable with plenty of leg room. However, the bus then started filling up until there were more people on board than seats. That's when the Laos bus driver unleashed his secret weapons; plastic stools. He proceeded to pass them to the back of the bus and 15-20 unfortunate people had to sit on these stools for the 7 hour journey to Vang Vieng. This may not have been too bad on a motorway but the road to Vang Vieng is all bends and up hill and down hill so the seats were constantly sliding while some of the passengers were sick so the smell on the bus wasn't the greatest!!
We made it to Vang Vieng just after 4pm and got into a tuk tuk for the 10 minute journey to our hotel. After checking in, we had a quick walk around the town and, as it was getting dark, we ate at one of the many restaurants before having an early night. We were woken a couple of times through the night by thunderstorms and when we got up on Saturday morning it was still raining. However, it did brighten up pretty quickly and, as planned, we decided to go tubing!! Tubing is pretty much why Vang Vieng exists and thousands of tourist come here to get drunk and float down the river on a rubber ring. Us now being of a more sensible age, we only had a few drinks each and a couple of whiskey shots as we didn't fancy drowning in the river. To be honest, it's really worth doing just for the scenery which is spectacular. There are about 4 or 5 bars on the way down to stop and grab a drink and there are plenty of people in them drinking as
much as they can. We also got to see a huge cave which goes for around 10km inside of the mountain. It was pretty amazing but as we only had flip flops on, we didn't venture too far in as it was quite slippery. We got back into town just before 6pm after leaving at 12pm so it's a full day of floating on the river. We had a really good day and would definitely recommend it. On Saturday night, we met up with Jeffrey and Illse again and went to a pizza place for tea. We were slightly shocked when the owner asked if we wanted the 'special menu' so we took a quick look. All I can say is that it contained weed and opium so we had a quick laugh and said no thank you. We stayed for some food though!! We then went to the Irish Bar and had a good few drinks and sat and watched the storm which had started outside. We had another great night and we plan to meet up with Jeffrey and Illse again in Vientiane on Tuesday.
Today has been a relaxing day really. We ventured out to grab some lunch and sat in one of the many restaurants which shows Friends on repeat. It was nice to have a dose of home as that's pretty much what Beth does on one of her many days off!! Tomorrow, we leave for Vientiane where we will spend a week so that we can get our visas for Vietnam. Vang Vieng has been good although it does remind the both of us of places in Greece and Spain where we went on holiday when we were younger. 3 days has been just about right and we would definitely recommend the tubing even if you aren't into the whole drinking part of it.