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So Vang Vieng... what is there to say!
Basically there are 3km of bars along the river, and you hire out a huge inflatable ring, and float down the river from bar to bar, the people from the bars throw you a plastic bottle on the end of a rope, and drag you into their bars. Along the way there are many many rope swings, and slides. which is fine if your sober. But nobody stays sober for long in Vang Vieng. Along the river they serve 'buckets'of alcohol, normally whisky, which cost about 80p each and contain about half a bottle of Laos Laos whisky. All of this combined is obv rather unsafe, but there are no health and safety laws at all, they will literally keep serving somone even if they are unconcious, in that sense pretty much like the sosh, but on a river.
Upon our arrival in Vang Vieng we decided the sample the local whisky, ordering buckets each (soon to be realised as a huge mistake) and then complained that theyw ere definatly not strong enough which led the guy to emptying another bottle of whisky into the buckets between us ( our 2nd mistake) They may not ahve tasted strong, but by the end of the night ppl cuold hardly stand, there were incidents of memory loss, and people falling into motorbikes and almost collapsing food stall accidently while leaning upon them.
So after our interesting start to Vang Vieng after a large breaskfast we decided the onyl thing was to get back on it in the tubing. So we all went and brought silly hats (some more than other...CHARLOTTE). Our 1st day was beautifully sunny, but with a curfew of 6pm (due to darkness) to return our tubes we didnt make it all the way down the riover. this was Largley due to the discovery of mr Laos Laos bar, a absoulte legend that I know everyone back home would love! He was constantly dancing, and giving away whisky shots about every 5 mins. His wife was one of the ahppiest ppl every, spray painting tattoos (with acrylic spray paint?!) onto people and teachin anybody and everybody the moves to "speak no americno"which I thought Kat had created herself, but turns out Mrs Laso Laos knew it too .We had a few scrapes on random rocks which we got wedged on along the way (as its the dry season) but ohter than that we all remained unscathed! When we returned and coinsulted a tubing map we discovered that we had began at the half way point.... we were gutted that we'd missed all the abrs at the start and still not made the full river! We were all in bed by roughly 9oçlock ( even the really young ones) as we were shattered.
The 2nd day was pretty much the same, though Lily, american Lily & Bella had arrived from Luang Probang and so there were more of us. This day we chose to wear silly sunglasses instead. We also began at 10am and began at the very top of the river, we were pretty mucht eh only ppl there for a while, as it seems that tubing doesnt normailly begin till quite a bit later! The other difference was that there was not one of us who was remotley sober, which is actually rather scary if you think about it too much! The boys had tried out all of the swing the previous day, and today American Lily ( we have accuired 2 Lily's) decided to have a go, inspired by her I also decided to try it. Which was fine at the time, the alcohol numbed the pain. Then undettered alot of the girls then decided to try the slide, Louise got stuck at the bottom but could run up, so there was just a massive crowd of drunks cheering her on to jump. Once again we got back, had dinner and went to bed.
The next day I woke up in totaly agonu, and my whole right hand side was bruised black and pruple from hitting the water on both the swing and the slide, even my eye was brusied! We all met for breakfast and decided to have a break from tubing as there were many many injurioes, i couldnt even laugh withou my rib hurting. SO some of the guys hired bikes to go and explore a cave and i headed back to bed and basically spent the whole day there. I noticed that there were many many people bandaged up or cut or bruised or hobbling around the village of Vang Vieng, which had very little to do apart from tubing, or sitting in a "friends" bar and watching endless episodes of friends.
The Third day of tubing began, and me and Louise were feeling rather ill, it was pouring with rain, which is the 1st rain we have seen since we have been here, but it didnt put us off. It turned out that it was also valentines day and we were all covered in spary on love hearts and being handed flowers from mr Laos Laos before we knew it. Another ridiculously drunken day, followed by the booking of a bus out of the place, I dont knwo how people survive any longer than 5 days in Vang Vieng without dying!! What an incredible place though :)
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