Ah Vang Vieng, we think one of the most lovely places we've been so far! We arrived on a bus full of westerners, everyone seemed to have the same lonely planet so when we got off the bus we just followed every one else! We were going to head into the main town but when we stopped breifly to adjust our bags we noticed some accomodation down by the river, we ventured down and found a lovely little resort place with little wooden huts with balconies! Because it is low season we got ours for a bargain, and we had the most gorgous view over the river. We had a lovely noodle soup on the balcony and could see amazing tree covered limestone peaks, there was loads of butterflies fluttering about...ahh relaxing!! It is said that Laos is an extremely laid back place and we can see that...no one seems to be in a rush or shout or stress......

We didnt do alot on the first day here apart from eat and sample the famous Beer Laos, which was about the same price as a coke, I think we may have sampled a bit too much! The next day we decided to have a go at tubing where you insert yourself in a tractor tube inner and float down the river. We got picked up in the morning by a tuk tuk, there were some other people with us too we then got driven up the road and then deposited by the river. We all got in our tubes and started to float away..all was good, the current was quited strong so we were going quite fast ahead we could see some reeds and two girls we were with got stuck in them, before we knew it we were flying towards them too, I suddenly got flipped out my tube and sortof got a bit panicky because the current was so strong, luckily Kam rescued me and we all floated off again, we stopped off at a little bar for a while and then got in the tubes again...going well until Kam starts to scream he has a giant leech on his shorts!! He was trying to get it off when he realised there was 3 more big ones on his tube, he got on all fours balancing on his tube, the current was spinning him around and I was desperatly trying to keep up with him, he then shouted out his tube was starting to deflate...he spent the rest of the tubing balancing on top of his tube poor sod! I think we were quite glad to reach dry land! We went into the main strip of Vang Vieng in the afternoon, theres quite a few places that just show friends and simpsons alll day long, we watched a bit of Simpsons and then headed back to our place for some Beer Laos we had live entertainment from a dog and cat fighting over a gecko! The nextday we booked oursleves on a Kayacking trip. We got picked up in the morning by a cheery little bloke and then we drove for a while to a place next to the river, we Kayacked over to the other side of the river to a cave called the elephant cave, it had a Buddha foot print and stallagnites that looked like an elephant. We then had a little walk through a tiny village and through some paddy fields to a little natural pool..I wasnt sure what we were going to do there until I noticed that in the pool was a tiny enterance to a cave! We all went into the pool on tubes again and there was a rope to pull yourself into the cave, it was pitch black inside so we were given head torches, we floated in for a while until we reached a large pitch black pool! We splashed around for a while before returnin back to daylight! it was really good fun, we then had a lovely lunch and then got back on the Kayacks, me and kam were in the same one and I think we made a pretty good team we went through some mild rapids amd the scenery was stunning. We soon got to the place where the tubing started so we had to avoid hitting tubees! We stopped at a bar for a while and had some beer laos..we returned to the kayack feeling quite happy! We had a really good day and in the evening we went out with a nice couple that were on our trip from birmingham for a few drinks.

We had such a good time in Vang Vieng we wanted to stay longer! We are loving Laos!