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Sunday (23rd) We were supposed to be collected from our guest house at 8.30am, at 9.30am someone finally showed up and took us to a clapped out mini bus. We thought this would be our 'luxury air-conditioned minibus' for our 8 hour journey to Vang Vieng. Luckily we drove a short way to the bus station where we all got on a bus slightly more modern than the last! We managed to bag the seats near the front so Joe could see where we were going to stop his motion sickness as this drive was very similar to the last few, very windy and bumpy! Luckily we stopped a few hours in for a lunch stop as Joe was beginning to feel queasy! The journey was ok, our driver wasn't too crazy and there was planty of amazing scenery to look at.
A little about Vang Vieng: is a tourism-oriented town in Laos, located in Vientiane Province about four hours bus ride north of the capital. The town lies on the Nam Song river. The most notable feature of the area is the karst hill landscape surrounding the town.
Vang Vieng has become a backpacker-oriented town, with the main street featuring guest houses, bars, restaurants, internet cafes, tour agencies and western tourists. Attractions of the town include inner tubing and kayaking on the Nam Song River, which is lined with bars selling Beer Lao and Lao-Lao, and equipped with rope swings, zip lines, and large decks for socializing. The Vang Vieng local community have organised themselves into a cooperative business association to sell tubing as an activity, in a system in which 1,555 participating households are divided into 10 village units, with each village unit taking its turn on a ten-day rotation to rent inner-tubes to the tourists. Thanongsi Sorangkoun, owner of the organic farm in Vang Vieng, says that tubing inadvertently began in 1999 when he bought a few rubber tubes for his farm volunteers to relax on along the river.
We arrived about 5.30pm, jumped into a tuk tuk and were taken to our hotel that we had pre-booked. It was lovely and the 3 German guys we had met on the bus also decided to stay here. We checked in, chilled out for a bit before joining our new friends for drinks. We headed out to explore! We had been told that Vang Vieng was very different to Luang Prabang (no curfew!) - there are bars/restaurants that constantly show re-runs of friends and family guy - this is exactly what we saw! So we found a little bar where we had a few drinks while watching family guy. Next we hit the Q bar where we had a few buckets before moving onto the sunset bar. Me and Joe called it a night around 1.30am so we weren't too hungover for tubing the next day!
Monday (24th) We had breakfast and chilled out before meeting up with the German guys and heading to rent our tubes! It cost about £5 to rent the tube and another £5 deposit to make sure you return the tube by 6pm. A tuk tuk took us to the starting point. We headed over a bridge to the first bar, had a few drinks then jumped on our tubes, we didn't get very far before we had ropes thrown to us and were being pulled into the next bar! We played a few games of beer pong, Joe played some football and did some jumps of the high jump (while I watched!) Our German friends decided to tube to the end to get some more money (we had been told it takes 2 hours to tube to the end!) So we stayed at the bar for a while before tubing next door to the next bar so Joe could have a few goes on the trapeze swing. A few more drinks and we were at the next bar being spray painted! (which we later realised when trying to was it off that it was actually car paint!) Here our German friends turned up (god knows what time it was - we were a little worse for wear by now!) They had ended up having to get out the river and get a tuk tuk back - they had also had their tubes taken back as your only allowed to go down the river once. We went to a few more bars - one with a 'death slide' obviously Joe had a few goes and the next had a 'blob' an inflatable thing in the river that you jump on - shuffle to the front - wait for someone to jump behind - then you go flying into the river! By this time it was now dark - aware we had to get to the end we left. It was very dark and we could hear what we thought was a waterfall - we sh*t ourselves so decided to get out and get a tuk tuk. We finally got back to the tubing office around 7pm - we didn't get our whole deposit back - haha! We grabbed some food and headed back to the hotel to get showered and changed. At the hotel I tripped - I have no idea now but I landed quite badly on my ankle. It was hurting a little so I had a shower then lay down, Joe woke me up to go out a while later but I couldn't move my ankle so Joe went out with the German boys.
Tuesday (25th) When I woke up this morning my ankle was really hurting - after lots of debating we decided to get it checked out at the hospital! X-rayed, bandaged up and armed with cream and pain killers we were told it was just a sprain (thank god!) It was an interesting experience in the hospital - especially walking past a room and seeing a woman that had just given birth!! While we were waiting we saw a board of pictures of tourists with mainly tubing related accidents - some very graphic! Overall not a bad experience but I don't think I'd like to have surgery there!! We went back to the hotel and chilled out - only heading out to grab some dinner and watch a few episodes of friends!
Wednesday (26th) my ankle was feeling a lot better today - It actually felt better with the bandage off so I kept it off and also as Joe didn't know how to put it back on! We decided to visit the blue lagoon today. So we grabbed a tuk tuk which drove for about 15mins over very bumpy roads! We arrived and we could've also visited a cave but I couldn't climb L so we just spent a few hours chilling. Joe had a few goes on the rope swing and jumped off the trees! We headed back into town, had dinner and a few drinks, met a cool group of English girls and with my ankle feeling loads better planned to go tubing with them again on Thursday!
Thursday (27th) We had breakfast and headed back to the tubing office - we decided only to get 1 tube and Joe would just hang on. We also decided we would give ourselves plenty of daylight to enjoy the amazing scenery while tubing down the river!! We met the English girls and a few others at the first bar where we stayed a lot longer than we'd planned! After too many buckets and a whiskey train we headed over to the next bar - Joe played some football and I chatted to a local lad who had the funniest accent - He sounded cockney! Then when it came to leaving there were no tubes left! So we hitched a lift on a couples kayak to the next bar where we grabbed a bucket for the journey and got another tube! We did make it most of the way in the day light - when it got dark we decided to get out at the sunset bar. We stopped here for a drink then (we think but don't actually remember) returned our tube - obviously after 6pm so we lost a little of our deposit again! We went back to the hotel to get ready - realising we'd lost out t-shirts and sunglasses in the river! Most of these details are flashbacks as we were both pretty drunk! We fell asleep at the hotel and woke around midnight, got ready, grabbed a baguette and then I decided I wanted to go back to bed! Joe went out for a while.
Friday (28th) We were both pretty hungover today and I was starting to get a cold so we spent the day in a bar watching friends for hours before grabbing some dinner, booking our minibus for the next day and heading back for an early night!
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