Day 112

Our bus left from the bus station in Vientiane at 9:30 and was pretty comfy despite it’s beat up appearance. Like all bus drivers, he drove like an absolute nutter, which meant that we made it into Vang Vieng in good time. The Laos countryside is stunning, with big mountains, and lush forests. We checked out a few of the guesthouses and ended up in the aptly named Vang Vieng Guesthouse. Vang Vieng has the feel of one of those 18-30’s holiday towns, with friends being played in all bars, and Family Guy – love Family Guy. Walking around the small town and checking out the thousands of tubing vests on offer, we bumped into Jacques and arranged to meet up later. By the end of the day, we both had had loads of baguette sandwiches, as it had been so long since we had bread. We decided to call it an early one and head for the river tomorrow.

Day 113

After breaki, we jumped on the back of a Tuk -Tuk and headed for the river for some tubing. The place was amazing but not what we expected though. It was a really beautiful setting, with dramatic cliffs along the river, but kind of spoilt by the bars. We were instantly given two shots of local whisky and ordered a Tiger whisky bucket. We sat like a couple of loners to begin with whilst watching people on the swings, until Gregg and Sarah came over to join us. Got chatting and Rog did his first trapeze swing – impressive. Ordering another bucket, we both had whisky poured down our throats instead of our free shots – nice. We stayed in Bar 1 for quite a while and I got talking to Suzanne and Sinead, a couple of girls that were on our bus from Hanoi. They were both really nice and we got drunk together. Rog did the trapeze swing again before we headed towards to Bar II via the river and being pulled in once we were there. At Bar II there was lots of dancing. Rog and Jacques tried to do some press-ups with me on their backs – clearly I am too heavy. Rog did some more shots that had bees or snakes sitting in the whisky bottle. This probably wasn’t his most impressive move as we ended up going home as Rog was smashed-nice. Jacques and I carried him to our room, where Rog tried to prove to me he wasn’t drunk, and ended up with a rather nasty cut down his back from falling off the toilet. I left Rog to sleep off his hangover and went out for dinner with everyone else and bought back a baguette to Rog which I ended up feeding him. We then went out to Bucket bar and had a really good night with lots of dancing.

Day 114

The morning started with a hangover for Rog, and breakfast in our usual place, which was once again delicious. We had arranged to meet everyone by the river at 2pm, although the girls were too ill to go, we had to meet Jacque as we couldn’t find him. Once down on the river, neither of us drank we just waited for Jacques and then left when he got there, we felt a bit bad but we really couldn’t face another day tubing.
We headed back into town and spent the day chilling out watching Family guy. In the evening we went out for a curry which was delicious and then had an early night.

Day 115

Went to our usual place for brekki, then jumped on a Tuk Tuk to the river at about 2pm. We had a couple of buckets between us and Rog did lots of the Trapeze swings, I was still too scared to risk it. Lots of dancing again, and then Rog did a swing, but fell off straight away, I thought it was funny. We headed back into town for dinner and had yet again an early night- think we are too old for this!!

Day 116

Today we hired two tubes, to actually tube the whole 4km of the river. As soon as we got to the river we jumped on our tubes and headed to our first bar. I decided not to drink that day so Rog just had a beer, and we got free chips-bonus! We headed off further down the river and Rog the donut, forgot his flip flops and had to go back to get them from the previous bar. Luckily the current is quite strong so you don’t really have to do much. We headed to the Mud bar where we played mud volleyball with another couple. This was very unsuccessful as there were massive pot holes in the ground which made us fall over constantly, plus it really smelt!
We spent the next couple of hours just floating down the river and tried one more bar with a massive slide, although neither of us went down it as I personally think you could die, and you also had to buy a drink to go down it, which Rog didn’t want to do. He took this as a sign to stop with the trapeze and other water activities he kept hurting himself on. The journey down the rest of the river was slow but really relaxing. The scenery is breath taking, with huge mountains, paddy fields surrounding. At one point there were cows in the river I swam past as fast as I could, this was pretty scary. There were slight rapids also, which were good fun, but we both hit our bums on the rocks-ouch!!
We got back about five, and this little boy helped me out of the river, he was so cute and basically jumped on me as he pulled me out. All the children were bathing in the river and washing their hair, this was quite an extraordinary thing to see.
For dinner we ate in a restaurant watching friends, I had the hottest Thai green curry ever, was delicious.
Vang Vieng was pretty cool place to be and we had a really good time here. Although we don’t think it really shows the true Laos due to Tubing party scene. Although still beautiful, you don’t get to experience what Laos is like, it feels more like a European holiday destination.