Well where to start with Vang Vieng, we didn't really know that much about the place really we just used to see lots of people walking around with these vests that said "In the tubing vang vieng " and we also found out that some people had died there in the past year. We arrived there after an eventful coach ride from Luang Probang. Ash managed to get a seat on his own so that we were more comfortable but the girl behind him kept being sick and it was running all around his feet EEERRRR. There was also a huge forest fire that we saw when we were driving through the beautiful Laos countryside, but the driver didn't seem to be that bothered so we just chilled out until we were closer to our destination. The roads close to Vang Vieng were terrible and really bumpy but once we finally arrived we got a tuck tuk into town with a bunch of random people who were on our bus, we got dropped off in the centre of town and Ash said that he would like to get a room by at most 6 o'clock so we began the long and boring task of looking for a suitable room. We went into the first place across the road from where we got off the taxi and we got a room for £7 with a TV and aircon, we were both like "that was easy". This is when it gets a bit confusing because the 7 days we were there kind of merged into one but this is what we did while we were there. As you walk around Vang vieng there are drunken people everywhere coming back on tuk tuks with the roof packed with inner tubes from the tubing down the river. Also in most of the bars/restaurants they had big TV's with either "Family Guy" or "Friends" playing all day and lots of these triangle pillows that you see all over Asia. Ash really liked the look of this place as it was what he imagined backpacking to be like. Straight after we got to the room we showered and then headed out to get our bearings, grab something to eat and obviously have a drink. We didn't go tubing the first night as you had to be back at the tube rental place before 6pm to get your deposit back (£2.40), which most people didn't do! We instead went looking for a place that had a pool and we eventually found one called D-Rose hotel and booked it for the next 5 nights. We did go tubing and it was really good, we went to the tube renting place and got a tube and a tuk tuk up to where the tubing starts up the river.

As we were on the way to the start point our tuk tuk broke down and we had to wait for another one to come pick us up. Once we finally arrived we got talking to these two lads who were from Mow cop and congleton and got talking about oatcakes ha-ha small world! When we arrived at the tubing part of the river it was amazing there were bars right on the river with tables in the water and loads of different songs banging away, we went to the first bar called Q-Bar and as you walk up to it they take your tube from you and give you a free shot and a bracelet, which you get from every bar and you can tell how many bars people have gone to by the amount of bracelets they have. We got really drunk and we moved from one bar to the next which is done by floating down the river and these guys from the different bars throw bottles with ropes attached which they use to pull you to their bar. At most of the different bars there were rope swings and jumping platforms and after watching lots of people going on them Ash decided he wanted a go, so he went on this zip line one and it was really good but he did lose his sunglasses!

We then moved onto another bar and had another bucket and ash had a go on a big rope swing. The 3rd or 4th bar we went into Ash went up to buy two more buckets and as he was walking away the barmaid stuck a joint in Ash's mouth and lit it and pointed to a sign on the wall "Free joint with every bucket" (for 80p!) Once we finished "everything" at that bar we headed back to get a tuk tuk because of the deposit. That night then becomes very confusing as we both can't really remember what happened but Becky said that we went to get some food from our favorite bar "Other side" and then went back to the room. We woke up thinking it was the morning but it was only 11pm and we were a bit confused and hung over and stayed up until 2am and tried to go to sleep. As I said before when certain things happened in vang vieng is a bit confusing but another night we went out drinking and went to some bars on a little island in the middle of the river one of the bars was called bucket bar and you got free buckets from 9-10 and buy one get one free after that but they were only 10,000 kip anyway (80p) so it definitely was the cheapest place we had been. One thing that both Ash and Becky can remember was the barmaid at that bar was on some kind of drugs and we had to ask her for a drink about 4 times she kept forgetting we had asked. That was the night we discovered THE SANDWICH it was a chicken, bacon and cheese baguette cooked fresh in front of you and covered in tomato sauce and mayo, the nicest sandwich in the world. Another night we went to the tubing bars without a tube and just sat there drinking and watching drunken people over at the bar across the river. There was this one guy who was really pissed and he fell in the river and couldn't swim to get back to the bar where he was and got washed down to the next bar, it was hilarious watching the drunken people. On the tuk tuk ride back to town there was this pissed girl who decided to climb on top of the taxi and her boyfriend had to go up there to look after her (Idiots). That is about all we did when we went out drinking. the rest of the time we just chilled in the many bars especially a bar called "Otherside" which played Friends and had really nice food like baked bean pizza and nice staff and another bar which was run by a pregnant woman (can't remember the name) which played Family Guy and had a happy menu which means you can have anything from the normal menu but with drugs in it either weed, mushrooms or even opium. We would just chill in there and watch Family guy and order a Joint off the menu then order some food and some more beer it was just what Ash had imagined from backpacking. We did some shopping while we were there, it was really cheap we both got some fake ray bans for 80p and we also bought some flick knifes (illegal in England) which were also 80p. There were lots of travel agents in Vang vieng to book our travel back to Bangkok but you could book a ticket to anywhere, we even saw a trip to Beijing which took 48 hours for about £100 wow. We eventually booked an overnight sleeper train (Ash's idea).

On the day we left we were in for a big trip and we had bought some snacks and a litre bottle of whiskey (80p) for the sleeper train. We got a tuk tuk to vang vieng bus station and then we were on a coach for a couple of hours and was dropped off and had to wait next to the bus drivers cousins drink stand for about 30 mins (Ash wasn't very happy about that) we then had another 40 min tuk tuk ride to a train station were we got a train into Thailand which took about 10 mins we then boarded our final train the sleeper train which was really cool, we waited for the train to depart and we were bought a menu for that night and one for the next morning. So we ordered some fried rice for the evening and breakfast for the next day, it wasn't cheap at about 8 pounds but it was worth it for the novelty of the food being brought to us! We just relaxed and read books on the train and then this guy came around and started making people beds up for them (6pm). We were eventually told we had to have our beds made up at 9pm so we tried to go into the bar carriage but we weren't allowed to stay unless we bought a drink, so we played cards on Ash's bottom bed for a while and had a drink of our whiskey for a night cap. Becky wasn't very happy about her bed and the whole train smelled of peoples farts by 10pm but Ash was like an excited puppy! Becky again slept with the passports in her bra as it would be a pain to have them nicked this close to going home! In the morning we went past some poorer parts of Bangkok which was a bit shocking, they were not quite slums but looked pretty grim. When we got off the train the train station felt really Western like you could be in Europe which was odd. We then walked outside jumped in a taxi to go to the bus station to catch a bus to Pattaya to go and visit Uncle Keith and visit some famous Thai go go bars!