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Happy Valentines Day!!!
I was wide awake at 7.15am this morning for some strange reason. I had my own room last night therefore had arranged to meet Nikki and Lauren at half 8 for breakfast but when I knocked on their hotel room they had slept in and were just knewly awake. I went down to breakfast and the rest of the group were all there, it was only bread, butter and jam but it filled an empty hole :)
When the girls were ready we headed into town and went to the amazing Joma bakery we went to yesterday for lunch so the girls could have breakfast. I sent some valentine emails and texts to the girls back home while I waited for them as the cafe had fast wifi. We then headed to see the temple museums of Vientiane, as we had worn suitable clothing this morning to be able to go inside the buildings etc, shoulders and knees covered and everything inbetween. Our first stop was Ho Pra Keo which was a temple with a huge Buddha inside that was meant to be emerald but it just looked black now, I think back in the day it was green but there wasn't information boards in English to fully understand why it was famous. We then went across the road to Wat Sisaket, which was the oldest temple in the city. This was worth seeing, the temple was surrounded by another building that was full of buddha's looking onto the main temple and in the temple was a huge gold Buddha that was really pretty. The Buddhas in the outer building were all so old and falling apart, but it was an impressive sight.
We wanted to go back to the Thatluang Stupa that we went to see last night, to go into the active/live temples that surrounded the stupa but we ran out of time. We headed back to the centre of town to order lunch from the Joma cafe to be able to take with us on the bus. We had to be checked out of the hotel by 12pm and we were meeting everyone at 12.30pm to get a bus to Vang Vieng. The road to Vang Vieng was picturesque with spectacular limestone mountains all around. It was a really bumpy journey and it wasn't very comfortable one bit.
It was 164km which took us just over 4 hours to reach the famous tubing village in Laos. Amongst all the backpackers travelling, everyone knows Laos is famous for its tubing, which is basically a stretch of the river that is lined with pubs and you go on a pub crawl in a rubber tube down the river. I had heard that Gap trips no longer allow any of it's clients to go tubing as its deemed an unsafe sport. Over the last few days, everyone in our group had been quietly discussing this issue and how we were going to get round about it. Charles had told Abi at dinner last night, that she would be chucked off the tour if she went tubing. Obviously none of us wanted to go to that extreme but at the same time Laos was famous for it's tubing and we just wanted to have a good time and experience what all other backpackers experience.
About 2 hours into the bus journey, Charles spoke to us all and asked us who was thinking about going against his advice and Gap Adventures advice and that still wanted to go tubing. We all put up our hands except Liz and James, so there was 7 out of the 9 of us still wanted to see what it was all about. Charles wasn't impressed at all and he gave us the death toll stats from last year, which was 22 :( and the accidents that some of his clients had encountered before telling us that we would all be removed from the tour from 8am till 8pm tomorrow. We had understood that we would have been removed from the trip all together if we went against their policy but everyone was happy to be signed off the tour for 12 hours. Charles had made it sound much worse that the situation actually was. I had spoken to Adam last night via email about whether or not I should do it etc and how unsafe it was etc etc so I was fully equipped with knowledge and wanted to experience it like everyone else has.
We all signed the bit of paper Charles had produced that said he would have no dealings with us for the full day tomorrow, and it caused such an atmosphere after we signed it. We had a full free day in Vang Vieng tomorrow so it was up to us how we spent it but he hardly could look at us after we signed it. There's been a few things on this trip that's annoyed me about Charles, it's hard to explain but he is very opinionated and gives you horrendous looks if you say something he doesn't agree with. His advice on activities in the towns are also very opinionated and he wants us to go to every single temple and museum in each town.
Anyways we arrived in Vang Vieng around half 4, and we just dropped our bags in the hotel before meeting the group at 5pm for a walk around the small town. There were loads of shops selling tubing clothes, flip flops, waterproof pouches etc and all of us got super excited about our day tubing when we were walking around. We hadn't had time to shower or change tonight before going out for tea which was totally unusual in our daily routine, because Charles just took us straight to somewhere after our little walk about. We went down to a restaurant that was right on the bank of the river and watched the sunset over the mountains with a glass of wine. The scenery here really was amazing. The view from our hotel room balcony was right out to the Laos Mountains. I took a million photos at sunset and there were two hot air balloons in the distance, which looked amazing. After a few drinks we were ready to order food, I had a Laos style chicken curry tonight which was really nice along with another few glasses of wine. Everyone was being bitten alive my mosquitos at the table because we were right next to the river. I don't know why but I had actually put on mosie spray before leaving the hotel so I was surprisingly bite free for one.
Nikki, Lauren and I decided to head out for a few drinks and experience this happening wee town. We went to the Auzzie Bar first for a drink where Liz and James came and joined us, but it wasn't really much fun there, so we then headed down to the famous Q Bar. It was quiet when we first arrived but it fairly started to pick up. We were on buckets of vodka by this stage and the boys had all joined us too. I was having a great time but Liz wanted to head back to the hotel about midnight, I wasn't ready to go home but I didn't want her going herself so I went back at this time.
I was sharing with Lauren for the next two nights but I didn't hear her come in. She ended up at a party on an island and came in about 4.30am, it sounded great fun but kinda glad I came back to my bed :) xxx
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