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Vang Vieng
On advice from some fellow travellers we took a mini van from Luang Prabang to Vientianne; this is because the minivans are able to drive around the landslides which block the road and the larger coaches cannot! Due to the heavy rains the area has had lately the twisty narrow road between Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng have seen many landslides which have blocked the roads and made travelling slow. But, luckily for us we had a fairly uninterrupted journey, although it was a very bouncy ride and the road was all hairpins occasionally intercepted with the odd s-bend.
Vang Vieng is a very strange place in my view! This small town has grown from a village to a town purely to accommodate for tourists. There are more internet shops and restaurants in this town than local people; AND about half of the restaurants have TV screens and constantly show "Friends"!! About another quarter of the restaurants show other programs or films whilst you eat and drink! The majority of the people that were in Vang Vieng when we were, we Irish and British people who were all there for the same reason...Tubing!
Tubing is where you pay to hire an inflatable donut (aparently a tube from a tractor tyre) for the day and the company drop you off up river (Pak Song) just outside Vang Vieng. Here you have to throw yourself in to your tube on the water and let the current take you down river. After a few minutes you will reach the first bar, here a very nice Laos person will throw you a rope and pull you in as the current is too strong to let you do this yourself. Here, you have a beer, soak up some rays and watch others as they humiliatingly struggle to get out of their tubes with grace! When ready you get yourself back in the water (and hopefully in your tube) and float to the next bar where you repeat the activity from bar 1! There are about 7 bars altogether, and the larger bars also have zip lines and large rope swings over the water for you to play on - a great idea when you are drunk and there is a strong current! Needless to say, I would not be considered a wimp and headed for the large swing in the first bar! Jo followed suit and went for one a bit further down river when she had warmed to the idea (see the upcoming videos and photos for evidence). Jo then got a little adventurous and neatly completed a backwards sommersault - through her ring...but this was not planned and she had actaully got a little too enthusiastic when getting back in to her ring on the water (you have to kind of throw yourself on backwards - picture it if you will). the look of surprise on her face when she came up was enough to double me up with laughter for some time so it was a good job that she didn't get caught in the current as I was far too busy laughing!! At the end of the tubing section of river you are helped in to shore by small children (yes a little embarrassing) who are looking for money from tourists - but who should really be in school. We knew this as we had spent the previous day lying in hammocks on the edge of the river (coconut milkshake in hand) watching this take place - oh it is a hard life!! That was until an almighty storm whipped up and we were soon soaking wet but the storm was spectacular and so we stayed to watch it. We managed to spend the best part of a day tubing despite the fact that it rained most of the afternoon and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
There's not a lot else to see in Vang Vieng so from here we booked our ride to Vientianne...
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