3 things about Vang Vieng... 1)The scenery is spectacular, 2) Every restaurant/bar has a flat screen TV showing back to back episodes of either Friends or Family Guy and 3) By tube is the only way to travel.

We spent 2 crazy nights in Vang Vieng, where the bars are open air and serve until daylight.

During the day the main attraction is tubing. This basically involves you hiring a rubber tube to float down the river. The river is lined with bars on wooden platforms and as you pass ropes are thrown out so you can stop and scramble up the banking for more drinks if you fancy. Most of the bars also have rope swings, slides and zip wires back into the river.

So our time in Vang Vieng was filled with plenty of episodes of friends, plenty of alcohol and a decent amount of floating in a rubber ring.

The bus ride away from Vang Vieng and onto Luang Prabang was via a very narrow, twisty road, which in places completely disappeared due to large amounts of mud. The road also follows the edge of the spectacular hills here and so most of the time we were peering off the egde of a very steep drop. However, we made it to Luang Prabang unscathed.