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VANG VIENG Firstly we have to start by saying that this place is a legend - anyone we have spoken to who has been (Sean Weston, thankyou) have told us how great it is so we have high hopes as we set off although neither of us really knows what to expect as Laos is so different from anywhere else we have been in Asia. The bus journey takes us miles up into the middle of the countryside and by late afternoon the scenery is pretty stunning with mountains and tiny villages as the backdrop. We arrive at dusk to what looks like a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere - as usual the bus drops us away from all the action - so we pay the tuk tuk the usual tourist tax to get back into the town. We check into our huge room at the guesthouse 'Babylon' and head out into the main street which in the tranquil surroundings here looks a bit like 'The Strip' - it is so brightly lit up. There are tons of bars and restaurants - all firmly aimed at the backpacker market, with their happy pizza/happy shakes and huge TVs showing movies or re-runs of the Simpsons or Friends. Oh and just so you get the picture and we are not being too vague, you can get anything you want in Vang Vieng, anything. People have spent a lifetime being 'stuck' here. The place is dead surreal given all that but we have a really tasty dinner and a few beers so the first impressions are pretty good. There is only one meaningful thing to do in Vang Vieng and that is 'tubing' and it is the business. So the next morning we head off to find the 'tubing' place at Mark's insistence. This is basically a hut where you can rent a tyre inner tube, which you then use to float down the river on a designated route - yeah sounds strange and that's because it is. We share the tuk tuk up to the starting point with another couple and none of us have tubed before so we are all still wondering what the fuss is all about. After some hesitation at the launch point we are soon all happily floating down the river, then after about 5 minutes we pass the first makeshift bar, at which point they stick huge bamboo poles into the water and fish us out. When we get upto the 'bar' we realise it consists of a wooden platform, a cool box full of Beer Lao, a bottle of Lao Lao spirit for passing out free shots and a sound system which has Boney M on a loop (with the tubing theme tune 'Rivers of Babylon' being the most popular track), it also has a rope swing over the river - brilliant, what more do you need? After a beer we set off down the river again and realise we are getting the hang of this tubing lark - then we pull up at 'the big bar' which is a massive construction made out of bamboo platforms with a couple of huge and we mean HUGE (see photos) ropeswings over the river. We end up spending the next 5 hours here as the place fills up with people and gets the sun all afternoon. We make ourselves move on to the next bar at about 3.30pm and spend the rest of the afternoon in similar fashion. At night Vang Vieng totally goes off as you meet up with everyone you have tubed with. We basically spend the next 3 days in this manner and meet some totally brilliant people who we have some of our times of the trip so far with. (thanks to Bradley, Guy, Wes, Larcon) But oh is it messy!!! By the 4th day we have lost a Birkenstok in the river (Sarah), a substitute wedding ring (Mark) is taken by river, we have broken a camera, plus we have booked the bus to Luang Prabang twice and cancelled the night before both times...we were supposed to stay 3 days and ended up staying 6.... we need to get out of this place before it kills us! We finally catch the minibus on the 3rd attempt, after foregoing tubing the day before so that we are sobre enough to make it out of Vang Vieng. Have to say it is one of the worst journeys ever as we feel really really ill and the minibus is really cramped and totally overflowing with bodies as usual. The scenery is stunning though so we try and focus on that rather than our travel sickness.
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