Instead of heading north from Chiang Mai and crossing from Thailand in to Laos by the two day slow boat, we chose to go south east and enter Laos from the southern border. This would fit our travel plans better for the next part of the trip. The only disadvantage to this is hat the land border is notoriously slow at processing your visa and passport.

We wont bore you with too much detail but the general gist is this, first bus is ten hours overnight, second is one hour to the town nearest border, then a tuk tuk to the border. Line up to get stamped out of Thailand and enter no mans land, third bus across friendship bridge and arrive at Laos border just over the river, then fill in forms at one window, queue at a different window and pay a fee as well as hand over forms, passport, and two passport pictures and prepare for the wait of around one hour. Having got application agreed you can leave no mans land and be accepted in to a country, in this case Laos and run the gauntlet of taxi and tuk tuk drivers at the exit all shouting for business to take you to town.

Having done the usual and teamed with the nearest group of travellers to us and bargained a decent price to get to town in a tuk tuk, we arrived in the centre of ‘Vientiane’ the capital of Laos. After so much travelling we have now resigned ourselves to finding a nice place to stay in a nice looking area and just accepting we pay a higher price for the first night. We then spend the rest of that day checking out the areas and finding a cheaper place to stay, but one as nice or better than the one we get for the first night. This plan is working much better as we end up less tired, less stressed and make the right choice in where to stay. This time it worked particularly well as we got breakfast included in the price of he guesthouse we moved to, which is very rare in Asia.

Part of our reason for doing Vientiane first was to get our Vietnam visa as this is required before you reach the borders as they cannot be issued on the spot and can only be issued in Capital cities. However because we had arrived mid week the processing of this would fall over the weekend meaning we would need to stay here for one week, initially we thought this would be fine. On reflection we discovered Vientiane although been the capital, has very little to do unless you live and work there.

We managed to find a small market to kill some time, but the main thing we found of interest was a temple filled with hundreds of ‘Buddha’ statues that are hundreds of years old and now many are in a state of decay. The ones you see on the picture behind a locked slat gate are all from the war, between Burma and Laos. Some are intact but some are in pieces, we never managed to find out why they were locked away or even kept, but clearly they are of some great importance to the Laos people.

Our journey to Vang Vien was only a few hours and we stayed at a nice place overlooking the river, it was similar hut style accommodation to Fiji so we were used to the taste. After settling in a day we rented a bike each complete with E.T. style basket to explore the town and decide what we wanted to do, we only found one thing we were interested in really and that had been or main purpose for coming here anyway. So the next day we got up early had a light breakfast and headed to the ‘Tubing; shop, here we were booked in and given a number on our hands before boarding a Tuk Tuk to the launch point.

Five kilometres from town sit’s a bar on the rivers edge blasting out music, while the pre tubing launch antics unravel. This takes the form of a swing, or rather a very high tarzan swing out over the river. Now for all boys and some girls this is like a magnet, simply climb the makeshift wood ladder up to the tree house ledge, hang on to the swing for dear life as its wet, then pick your drop zone as you fly out and up over the river like a circus acrobat! David opted to drop at the point where the swing hit its peak, not because it was the highest bit (maybe a factor) but because the river was fast and it gave time to surface and grab the rope to pull him in before he the current sweeps you off and on its own ride.

Build up fun over and it was time to tube. If you haven’t guessed yet this is basically jumping in the river with a rubber ring, which happens to be an old tractor inner tube! But once your in the river there is only one way you are going and that is down it and fast. The river is moving so quick that to stop at the make shift bars on the way down they throw rope lines out to you and drag you in.

Now a point to note here is that this river has rapids! Yes rapids, now we are crazy but we aren’t stupid. So we decided to miss the first few bars and head for the big fun one. The big fn one has some visibly noticeable neat toys as you are coming down the river, but the river at this point is one of the widest so some steering on your part is needed to get you close enough to grab the lines thrown to you. Eeerrr problem, Carina is only small and could sit comfy in the ring but then couldn’t reach the water with both arms to paddle or steer. The result? Well she went sailing past the bar and the rope and David, so while David was in fits of laughter at the sight resembling a small child splashing around in a pool and getting no where, Carina was frantically getting out of her ring then back in a different way so she could swim with it.

David stayed at the side of the bar but didn’t get out incase she didn’t get to the side, then he would just have to float down and meet her at the next. But Carina did get to the side all be it in the trees and bushes of the banking and when she finally got to the bar was rattling on about the floating barrels, bushes and fence obstacle course she had just conquered! No injuries sustained so it was beer time at last, which in return you get a finger nail painted. Now laugh you may but this is your ticket to go on whichever of the even bigger swing, slide, zip line toys you wish or even all three. You will get the general idea when you see how people were launched from the inclining slide like a cork from a bottle. As before they all aim up stream to give you chance to surface and break from the current.

After swings, splashes and obstacle courses we were ready for some lazy time in he tube, so had to get the rings in the river, then jump and hope you hit it central and away we were spinning down the river. A few minutes in and the lazy idea had being rudely interrupted by the rapids, which sneak up on you and some times just appear from nowhere as a surge of water bolts down the river from somewhere. In order to steer the rings sometimes we could hang together but other times it had to be a lone operation, you had to pick a current flow you liked and could see on the surface and head for it so you could be carried through round and over the sea like choppy waters in a storm swell.

Twenty five minutes of this and the odd calm bit and we were knackered! But also came to a divide in the river presenting us with two directions to choose from but no clue which was the correct way! In a sudden Tom and Jerry style startling moment a sign emerged under the trees at the opposite side of the river signalling the end and to get out!!! Well we had no chance of getting over there, so battled our way to the banking soon after but then with Carina hanging on to Davids legs he hauled us up the banking clinging on to log grass which occasionally snapped, sending us back down the river.

Eventually getting out of the river Carina had gone first and David passed his tube to her then climbed out himself, no sooner had he turned is back though and there was a hollowing from Carina followed by two splashes. On spinning round the sight that released his eyeballs from their sockets was one tube spiralling down the river with Carina in hot pursuit. Now with Carina and tube in river after they should be and separated, well there was no way of telling where that saga was going. With not a snowball in hells chance David would let Carina have all the fun without him, he grabbed his ring in the same movement as launching him and it at the river in a very ungracious leap. Carina didn’t get far before we were hooked up again and clambering up some make shift steps a little down the way, the onlookers from the nearby bar stared in disbelief possibly at how stupid they thought we were. Amused by this we were the whole walk back to where we dropped the rings off and will be for some time as once again we had a great day with the usual mishap fun that makes these days special.

We ended our time in Vang Vieng on the high note of the tubing trip and left a day later to head for Luang Prabang, sadly this place turned out to be dull as dishwater. We did one trip to a cave full of Buddha images with the odd drawing on the wall. It took over one hour by a slow boat and we had around one hour at the site, it also has ‘Stuppa’ in and around it which is the equivalent of an above the ground grave for local villagers who pass away.

The reminder of the trips that ran from here where all jungle and hill tribe trekking but not a patch on the place we had been in Thailand and also weren’t even in Luang Prabang itself. So we didn’t see the point in that at all, therefore it comes time for us to leave Laos and head for Vietnam. The high point for Laos definitely being the Tubing which is certainly poles apart from the other rapid adventures we’ve had.