Okay we think we may have made a mistake coming to Laos. We were recommended a visit here by soooo many people so we thought 'why the hell not'. We were told of exciting adventures, banging clubs and more travelers than you could shake a stick at. But oh nooooo, typical for us we end up wasting valuable time and money. To be fair Laos is the most beautiful country we have seen so far, with absolutely amazing scenery. On our bus trip from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng we passed through tiny little villages comprising of small wooden huts and in the background were huge mountains, green forests and clouds nearly touching the roof of our bus. It was pretty incredible and many a picture was taken so you can share this beauty with us! But really, there was nothing at all to do!

We arrived in Vang Vieng on Saturday afternoon with Paul in tow and we were dropped off in the middle of a huge, muddy car park type thing. We hailed a tuk tuk only for it to drive us 10 metres down the road and around the corner and we were in the city centre. Imagine bright lights, huge buildings, thousands of people. And you have the completely the opposite of Vang Vieng. We found a pleasant guest house and unpacked before setting off for a mooch around the city/one street. We thought we would give it a chance and see what the nightlife was like so at about 9.30pm we headed out but it seemed that the night was nearly over! There was absolutely no one around. We were told that everyone would be over the other side of the river which you had to cross a rickety old bridge to get there. This we did and our hearts leapt with excitement as we heard the sound of booming music coming from a lit up shack type building. We trundled over only to find one lonely Lao barman waiting for the first clients of the evening. Unfortunately, the first clients were not going to be us and we trundled right back across the bridge and into bed.

The next day we decided to try tubing. For those of you who are confused by this term, basically you are each given a large inner tube to sit on and you float down the river stopping at various ‘bars’ along the way. We boarded our tubes and set off, very slowly, down the river. The first place we came to offered a zip wire into the water so we directed our tubes up onto the bank. Laura, Martha and Paul all happily zipped down the wire and sploshed into the water but Nyima just couldn’t muster up the courage to do this. So we moved on down the river. There were several more bars and zip wires along the way but they were all empty and the owners of each bar were desperately calling out for customers as they floated past on their tubes. Everyone we had met raved about tubing but at that point in time we really could not understand why! Occasionally the river would get slightly faster but shallower at the same time and our tubes would get stuck on the rocks poking out of the water. It was on one of these occasions we lost Paul and he went sailing down the river all by himself. Three hours later after having to get out of our tubes to physically lift ourselves from the rocks, we reached the end. Our arms were sore from the paddling and we were not in the best of moods. The tubing had completely knackered us and so we returned our tubes and headed straight to beddy byes!

The following day our dear Paul departed Vang Vieng and headed off into the land of solo travelling. We said our farewells and had a search around for something interesting to do. We came across a tour company that offered a one day tour doing activities like caving and kayaking. Well that was definitely more interesting than watching Friends all day at one of the local restaurants. We happily booked it, glad of something to liven things up!

We arose early on Wednesday as our tour started at 9.30am. We were picked up by a large tuk tuk crammed with fellow tour goers. Luckily for us we were accompanied with possibly THE most annoying Canadian girl you could ever possibly imagine! She would not shut up and for those of you who have seen American Pie… our friendly Canadian girl is exactly like the ‘band camp’ girl but at least 700 times more squeaky, brash and irritating! What a good start to our day that was! Our first stop was some caves that we were to go tubing in. There were only a few headlight torches and our lucky Laura was given one. The caving basically involved heading into a pitch black cave on inner tubes and following a rope until you reached the heart of the cave where you then turned round and came back out. We were last in the line heading into the caves and somehow we got left behind. We could see all the other people’s headlights at the end of the first cave, heading into the second cave and we got a wee bit scared at the thought of being left behind so we shouted at them to wait for us. Either they didn’t hear us or they wanted to lose us, but those lights soon disappeared completely! And then Laura’s flickering headlight went out. And then we lost the rope that would lead us back out of the cave. That is when the screaming started. And the walrus noises – which, by the way, have now caught on and Martha has proceeded to become a member of the ‘Walrus Noise’ club. It was actually the scariest moment of our lives and we seriously thought ‘this is it, this is the end’. It was pitch black, no-one else was around and we were floating on tubes of rubber in the middle of a cave! But then in the distance we saw a flash of light and a lone figure was approaching us. We called out for help but the figure did not respond. Our first thoughts of ‘wahey – help has arrived’, turned into ‘oh crap – we’re trapped in a cave with a mad man!’. The approaching man remained silent until he reached our very feet and then he started to laugh. This laughter did not help the situation and we continued to scream. Eventually we calmed down and the mad man led us through the caves to meet with the rest of the group. However, our group seemed more concerned with finding a camera one of them had stupidly dropped into the water than with our safety. After half an hour of traipsing through the stupid cave we emerged into glorious sunlight, minus one group member who was still desperately searching for his camera. After a lovely barbecue, our next stop was kayaking. We were driven to a spot on the river and given our kayaks. As usual we wanted to go in a three and even though this is not recommended for kayaking (as we will reveal shortly) we insisted on it and were given a tri-yak. We set off down the river getting used to the rowing motions and our first hurdle rose upon us. It was a 90 degree turning in the river accompanied by slightly faster flowing water. We pushed ahead and managed to get round the bend safely… shortly before forgetting to straighten up and careering into a bush on the side of the river where we became stuck. At least that was better than capsizing we thought. But we were still in the path of the fast flowing water which desperately pushed at our little tri-yak, and after grappling at the branches of the bush for a few seconds we toppled off the side of the kayak and plunged into the depths of the swirling watery madness. The current was surprisingly strong and we were pulled downstream reaching out for rocks and stones to slow us down. But to no avail. We continued to sail down the river only slowing to a halt when our guide leapt from his boat to pull us to safety. Not perturbed by this fiasco we jumped straight back on our vessel and happily paddled onwards. Only for the same thing to happen 2 minutes later. A slightly stronger current hit us and we tipped right back over again. This time though it became slightly dangerous. Martha plunged into Nyima who then got caught on a plant on the river bed and battled to free herself. The current then sucked Martha downwards, at which point the river suddenly got ALOT deeper, where she met Laura and they both frantically tried to pull their way to the surface, all the while being pulled right back under. Thankfully, our strength and determination allowed us to save ourselves and we hauled our soaking bodies onto the riverbank once again whilst our guide flew down the river to rescue our poor tri-yak! Once he had retuned he decided it would be better if Laura go in his one man kayak whilst he sit with Martha and Nyima and steer their boat. After this magical swap-around we continued our journey without a hitch and reached our destination of a bar on the tubing course where everyone was chilling out with a beer. There was a huge swing-thing into the river at this bar and Martha and Laura climbed straight up the ladder to have ago whilst Nyima guarded the belongings. Martha went first and swung across the river before letting go of the rope when it was at its highest point… and then performing a face flop, which is like a belly flop except it just involves the face. And then Laura took her turn and didn’t even manage to swing across the river. She let go of the rope when it was at its lowest point and proceeded to skid across the water before sinking into it. After this bar stop it was back onto the kayak for yet more arm-aching activity. The rest of our group sped off at speeds to rival the Oxford and Cambridge boat racers whilst we set off at our usual paddling speed. Laura paddled by the side without any problems whilst Martha and Nyima’s boat seemed to have developed a small hole and we had to pull over every 5 minutes to empty it before it sunk. Finally after about 6 hours of kayaking we arrived back home and as it was Nyima’s birthday the next day we decided to have an early one so the big day would come sooner!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NYIMA! We woke up after a leisurely sleep and set out to have some breakfast. The only breakfast fit for this day was of course a HUGE fry up! And we were not disappointed. Bacon, sausages, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, toast and hash browns met our lips with pure delight! After this mouth-watering feast we went to have a traditional Lao massage. For one hour we were poked and prodded in places we didn’t even know existed and we left the building feeling very relaxed and considerably more flexible! We decided to try tubing again and this time it was slightly better as the river was a bit busier. And Nyima even tried the zip-wire, even though it seriously took her about 20 minutes, and Martha and Laura demonstrating that is was perfectly safe, for her to do it. After she had done it however, she climbed straight back up the ladder and did it again because she loved it so much! We moved on down the river, this time stopping at a few more places, and performing several more face flops and belly flops. We reached the end at about 6 and got ready for a big night out! Unfortunately it seems that everywhere in Vang Vieng closes at 11.30pm so after we had got ready and found somewhere to eat it was 9pm! Still, we had a pleasant evening accompanied by a delicious pizza and a few bevvies before heading to bed!

The next day we could bear the boredom no longer and so we booked a trip to get away from Vang Vieng. We had three choices… Bangkok which would take 13 hours, Pakse where the 4000 islands are which would also take 13 hours, or Vientiane which is the capital city and would take only 3 hours. We opted for Vientiane as it gives us a chance to explore a slightly more populated part of the country (hopefully)! We will write from there x x x x