En route to Vang Vieng, I thought the bus was going to blow up. Each time the gears changed and the engine revved, it sounded like a large cow was being slaughtered slowly. We wound around the stupidly curly roads. A huge tanker lorry had careered off the side of the road and lay in the ditch. Oh - and the guy with an AK47 was on board, guarding our bus for us - in plain clothes. The joys of travelling in Laos! We stopped off for lunch and then had about another hour before we reached VV.

Getting off the local bus, we had our bags thrown out of the back window to us (so as not to disturb the bags of rice that lined the walkway of the bus!) and we walked across the gravel land site towards the main strip of guest houses. I expected to see tumble weed blowing down the road towards the river, the town was like a wild western town. We found a guest house and made ourselves at home. That night we watched the new Bond film again in a cafe and had an early night.

We had a really lazy day and just relaxed and watched endless episodes of the Simpons, Friends, Family Guy etc etc while sipping fruit shakes. It was a good day and especially the Loas message - wow it was a cracker. You really got the feel the ambience of the place which is excellect.

Tomorrow, we're doing the 'Tubing'!

We rocked up to the Tubing gaff at about 11.30 to collect the rubber rings. We were hearded into a Tuk Tuk with lots of other tubers and driven 5km down the road to the starting point of the course. It isn't rainy season in Laos currently and you could see this from the river. Although there was a rocky river flowing steadily down stream, you could see that a few months earlier it would of be a monster! The water temperature was brisk to say the least and dipping your gluteus maximum into it was a little bit of a shock to the system. As soon as I was in the ring I was floating off down stream. Magic!

The weather and scenery were tremendous. The limestone mountains with the sun high in the sky and not a cloud in sight. It seemed to be the perfect way to catch a few sun rays. Even better than that was I didn't even make it 50 feet down the river before there was a make shift barman that hoiked me in with a long bit of bamboo and cracked open a big beer Laos. Also there was a zip line rigged up that zoomed you from a higher platform and flung you into the freezing cold water - excellent. The only let down was the music in the background - the best of Westlife......!

After finishing a my first beer it was back to the tubes to flow down stream again. It was a so peaceful and relaxing and nice to be in the sun again with my nipples out. I say relaxing until you hit a small rapid, then adrenaline kicked in. It wasn't long before I was being hoisted into another make-shift drinking hole. This time the main attraction was the Fly Fox rope swing. This was a 30 foot monster that was designed at a specific angle that you dropped shapely and then swung you directly straight back up so that if you released at the highest point you were about 30 foot in the air. It was a corker and so funny to watch people have a go. After sunbathing and polishing off another big beer Laos it was back to the rings. We had made friends with an Ozzie couple called Michael and Megan which we stuck with for the rest of the day.

It was pretty much the same for the rest of the day, floating down stream in a big rubber ring, amazing scenery, plenty of stops, beer Laos, sun bathing and zip wires and rope swings. The last rope swing was brilliant. It was the highest of them all and the local guy were hanging off it with the toes and allsorts. Michael and I attempted this but without much luck.

Five hours latter and the sun had disappeared behind the mountains and it was getting cold. So we made an effort to get a move on and get to the end point. We failed in this attempt and had to get out on the river bank and get a taxi back to town - doh! The route can take you two hours to complete but me thinks a little to many bar stop cost us a a couple of hours!! oops It was a quality day had by all. That evening we met Michael and Megan for a ruby and a couple of drinks. After that we watched Departed and bumped into Ben and Catherine that had just arrived in town. I loved Vang Vieng but due to a fairly tight schedule we were off to Phonsavanh in the morning.

Bye for now

Miffy x x x