After 4 hours, we arrived in Vang Vieng, found a guesthouse, got some food (whilst watching Family Guy!) and headed out for a few beers. After a late night (and slightly tipsy Skype call to Natalie) I headed to bed.

Next morning we got up and went for breakfast (whilst watching Friends!) and then went tubing! Now, for the uninniciated, tubing basically involves sitting in a huge rubbed tube, floating down the river and stopping at bars for horrendously strong buckets of whisky/vodka/rum or gin etc mixed with coke/lemonade or some other soft drink!! Great fun though!! I avoided the swings and slides into the river... as we'd heard that someone had died doing one a few weeks back!! Not for me!! After a game of mud volleyball (just volleyball but in thick deep mud!) I kicked Tom's arse at Tug-of-War, where if you lost you were pulled into a pit pit of, you guessed it, mud!!

Eventually downriver it got dark (at which point I'd floated further than Tom and decided I needed to get out pretty sharpish!! Having banked at a steep hill I was helped up by some legendary locals and got a tuk tuk back to town. I crashed out at the guesthouse having stubbed a toe really badly getting out of the water, while Tom went out and met some people we had met before!

Next morning, we got the 9am mini-bus back to Vientenne, having planned on the mammoth journey from Vang Vieng, all the way to Bangkok, by mini-bus, bus, tuk tuk and sleeper train!! We expected the journey to take up to 24 hours..... christ!!!