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Vang Vieng, a packpackers paradise. This town is on a plateau surrounded by beautiful mountains with the river running through the valley. 90% of the tourists here were backpackers which made for a very fun week!
Some of the highlights include the journey into Vang Vieng where we experienced our first punctured tyre on the bus. We were surprised by how quickly the driver put a new tyre on... and also surprised to see how much it cost for a full tank of fuel - 3gbp!!!! The scenery was the best part of our time in Vang Vieng and we had sun almost every day (35-45 degrees on average).
We enjoyed watching Andy Murray get through to the Wimbledon Final but not so much watching him in the final!
We hired a bicycle for a day and went to "the blue lagoon". A gruelling (for Gem) 10k cycle in the heat of the midday sun. When we finally arrived we walked past a pool in the river and continued on to the cave. As soon as we got inside Gem decided it was going to be too difficult to get any further so gave up and went to wait by the river. 2 hours later Matt emerged with a ripped toe nail, bleeding elbow, flip flop less as they had broken after ten minutes and a very broken toe and covered in mud! Meanwhile Gem had been swimming in the pool which turned out to be the blue lagoon that Matt was searching for in the cave. Only after a few hours of getting over the experience did Matt admit that he had actually followed a group of Japanese pro cavers through the cave - PRICELESS!!!
We met two Brazilian guys called Gustavo & Kim in Four tousand islands (south Laos) & have become friends after meeting at several of our Laos stops. They taught us the way of the crazy Vang Vieng scene after spending the day out together on the 'party island'. This would be an amazing day where we drank much whiskey including whiskey that had rotting snakes in the bottle! Just like a scene from 'spring break' on MTV back in the day. The bars are packed by midday, top dj's playing and what seems like thousands of bikini clad teenagers all loving eachother. We managed to spot at least 4 people who were older than us so managed to convince ourselves that we werent too out of place and raved like the rest of them till way after the sun went down!
Some of the great things you will see from our pictures include local kids jumping from a bridge where the water was very shallow, less than a meter deep. Gem whooping Matt 3 days in a row 3-0 at table tennis, many hours chilling out with the beautiful surroundings.
The lowlights included Lewis Hamilton and Andy Murray and finally finding out we had stayed for 7 nights rather than the 4 we thought we had so checking out cost us more than we were expecting but this just shows how much fun we had here!!
(we have recommended Vang Vieng to anyone we have met going the other way without fail)
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