Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We got yet another bus from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng. This one was slightly more eventful as we had a little crash! Fortunately we weren't going very fast as we had just driven through a village so no one was injured. The roads were really windy and as we turned round a sharp bend a car drove into the side of us. There was no damage to the bus but the front of the car didn't look very good. After about 10 minutes the driver of the car paid the bus driver and we were on our way again.
We arrived in Vang Vieng, had a little sleep and then went out. We found a little bar by the side of the river which had hammocks so had a drink there and watched the first of the tubers return. We went and got some food and had an incredibly drunken night! This was quite an achievement considering everywhere closes at 11.30 and we didn't go out until about 6.30!The next day we got up later than planned due to the hang over and went tubing. Tubing is basically sitting on a big rubber ring and floating down the river. The great thing about Vang Vieng is that there are bars with huge jumps and swings set up as you float along the river. The general idea is to stop at the bars, have a shot of Lao Lao (locally brewed whiskey) for Dutch courage and then jump of one of the swings!
The first one I did was a zip line and considering I was terrified it went well. I can't really say the same for the next one! The next one was the biggest one and called the Flying Fox! You had to climb up a ladder, hold on the handles and then jump of the platform. Most people do a couple of swings and then let go when it's not very fast. Unfortunately for me I started with my arms bent and after a few seconds realized that I couldn't hold my own body weight in that position so tried to straighten them, this wasn't very successful and I couldn't hold on any longer. I was at the bottom of the swing, going quite fast so I hit the water pretty hard. Someone managed to get a video of the whole thing which has been uploaded on to my Facebook page. It's very funny and don't worry, I didn't hurt myself?much!!
After that we had several more drinks and merrily floated down the river. By the time we got back it was dark, and some how I managed to lose a flip flop. I hopped out of the water, went back to the guest house and continued to top up what we had drank in the day!
The next day was very similar to the first although we managed to get up even later so didn't make it to the river until about 3 o'clock. We met two guys as we got in the tubes and floated down with them.We went to a bar and played volley ball for a while, the weather was really bad so we were playing in the rain which made it interesting, the pitch turned into one big muddy puddle.
After my spectacular fall the day before I was a little reluctant to do another jump but after several drinks and a lot of encouragement I decided to do it again. I didn't go for the big one again, I decided I should try a slightly smaller one and this time it was fine. Again, we got some drinks and floated down the river in the dark. We went out that night with Dan and Dave, the two guys we'd met in the day, and had another heavy night.By the third day we were all exhausted! Sarah and Casey were heading off to Hanoi on the bus and Sarah and I were staying another day. The idea was to do one last day of tubing but we were too tired so sat in a bar and watched Friends for about 5 hours!! We went out again that night and once again it turned into a big night.
The following day we were getting the bus at 1 pm, I woke up and checked my Ipod to see what time it was. For some reason I haven't changed the time from English time so had to convert it to local time and worked out that it was 12 o'clock. I woke Sarah up in a panic as we needed to get up, pack, get some food and get to the travel shop within the hour. We manically threw everything into our bags, checked out of the guest house, ran to the travel shop to drop our bags of before going to the bank and picking up some food. We had just done it in time and as we were walking to the bank Sarah looked at her watch. When she looked it said 11am! In my hung over state I had added 8 hours onto the UK time instead of 6 hours so we were actually two hours early! After wasting 2 hours we started out onour mammoth 30 hour trip Hanoi!
- comments