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I can now say I've been tubing in Vang Vieng, and got the t-shirt!
We arrived into Laos with no problems at all, muddling through the visa process with a guy we'd met in Nong Khai. We then tuktuked straight over to sort out the Vietnam visa, and spent the rest of the afternoon in a cafe drinking fruit smoothies and beer! Luxury. We've definitely slowed down a lot over the last few days, but Laos is supposed to be chilled so we're just following the vibe! We stayed in Vientiane over night, but it turns out theres not much to do there and its all pretty expensive! Our hostel was pretty grotty, but good for a nights sleep all the same. Plus, we went to an italian restaurant and ordered PIZZA and I could eat safe in the knowledge there was no fish sauce in sight!
The three hour bus to Vang Vieng felt long and hot, but it was very cheap (you can go with the tourists, but we managed to avoid all the 'tourist spotters' trying to rip you off at the bus station and got on a local bus) Vang Vieng is awesome! It's surrounded by massive limestone cliffs which are beautiful, and it's really chilled, but also a little like Ibiza or something full of sunburnt english tourists and souvenire shops selling the same things! We managed to wander the whole town in the afternoon between smoothies and beers, then just chilled in the evening. It felt pretty empty until later, but we soon found out why!
Next day was Tubing day! We hadn't been late to bed so got up early and decided to visit a cave just outside the main town....biiig adventure! (well, you could say mistake!) Started walking through rice fields following a sign off the main road saying 500m...more like 2k! I managed not to fall into the rice water, not that it helped much as we were soon wading through rivers! There was a local collecting an entrance fee before all this, obviously not wanting to reach the cave himself! We finally reached the cave, in the middle of nowhere, fending off the leeches, mosquitoes, snakes... (ok, bit dramatic but i was petrified!) but couldn't bring ourselves to go further than the first entrace cave! I figured later that was probably wise, seeing as nobody knew where we were if we never returned! So, just a little too adventurous for my liking!
The afternoon we were tubing with the rest of the crowds. We met up with Jamies from Thailand and a few of his mates and headed to the first bar. For those who don't know, tubing is pretty much just a line of bars down the riverside. You sit in tubes (masive tyres) along the river then get pulled into the bar by a local with a rope! Have a few drinks, then back into the water for the next one! Theres loads of cool swings and zip wires into the water (and yes, many horror stories of drowings, concussion, sliced feet, massive bruises...) We survived til the end and I even got the courage up to swing from the highest wire (after a couple of beers...sensible?!), although I thought Ollie might not make it on the journey home when he decided to ride on TOP of the tuk tuk all the way home.
The few bars back in town finished us off so we slept in late this morning. After lunch we hired some dodgy bikes and set off out of town for 7km to another, more touristy cave! Luckily for me! No rivers to wade through this time, just a massive cave and an awesome lagoon to swim in afterwards! Im a little sunburnt today and bruised from belly flopping into the river from a height, and my infected blisters from the jungle are still infected but I think they are starting to heal, and permanent pen doesn't come off skin easily either! We're off back to Vientiane tomorrow to pick up our visas (fingers crossed) then over to Vietnam same day hopefully, on an as-of-yet undecided route!
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