The journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng was made by minibus and in essence was pretty horrific. Although we were driving through incredible scenery as we wound through the mountains, the breakneck speed and aggressive way of driving combined with a 2 people squashed in one seat and insanely bumpy roads meant that it didn't take long for sickness to set in. I spent the majority of the seven hour journey staring at the dashboard in an attempt to combat the rising nausea and Tom was little better. This meant that when we arrived in Vang Vieng we were in no fit state for exploring and we directed a tuk tuk to the first guesthouse named in the guidebook just so we could lay down. Unfortunately although beautiful the hut on the river that we were assigned on arrival was a little too primitive for 2 pathetically ill people and after a debacle with a head poking out the ceiling which we thought was a snake we decided to move on as soon as possible the next morning. (Don't worry it turned out to be a really big lizard!) Our creepy crawly animal fears were further confirmed when in the morning we discovered that a single banana had been removed from my bag and peeled and half eaten by god knows what! On discovery of this intrusion Tom found some sort of hooked weapon outside and proceeded to beat all our belongings with it in case the animal was hidden inside them, I found this pretty hilarious but I think he fancied himself as some sort of jungle explorer! We quickly scarpered into a different establishment which had lovely tiled floors and a sparkly bathroom with no chance of invading animals aahh… We spent the day recuperating in the room and making use of the free wifi so that we would be lovely and refreshed for tubing the next day.

The day of tubing dawned and after breakfast we headed out to collect our tubes from the operators and get a tuk tuk down to the start point on the river. On arrival we realized that our perky 11.30 am start was pretty early for tubers and with the exception of a few other people the bars were mostly deserted. We didn't let this deter us though and we jumped in the river and started paddling downstream. Four and a half hours later we had stopped at a couple of bars and were getting arm ache from all the paddling and so 2km from the end of the course at 4:30 pm we decided to get out, as we suspected that at our current speed we would still be going well into the night! Talking to others that had been tubing over the next few days we met loads who hadn't made it past the first 4 bars and who were shocked to realize that the course went on for a few miles so all in all we were pretty pleased with ourselves! Although we had a lovely day on the river it was easy to see how so many Westerners die every year, the bar owners were all handing out free shots and whisky and this combination of alcohol rope swings and deceptively shallow water is clearly a lethal one as proved by the ridiculous amount of people we spotted around town sporting various injuries and bandaged limbs.

Unfortunately, the party atmosphere of the area around the river has spilled over into the town with all the identikit bars sporting flat screens playing 'Friends' 24/7 and offering questionable 'Happy' shakes. It is difficult to discern which country you're in whilst in Vang Vieng and it certainly doesn't represent traditional Laos, the vibe is more Greek party island than mystical Mekong. None of this particularly appealed to myself or Tom and although we had enjoyed the tubing we didn't think Vang Vieng had much more to offer so we resolved to move onto Vientiane the capital of Laos the next day.