So more from Laos... We headed north from Vientiene the capital, to Vang Vieng. We were warned by Derick in Cambodia that it attracted a lot of yobbos and he was right.
But the town itself was something I had been looking forward to on our whole trip. Somewhere that was something out of the norm and with out finding a better word for it awe-some. .
Vang Vieng is situated on the Nam Song (Song River) and all around are limestone krasts. So it sits in the middle of all these massive hill type things jutting out.
We stayed in bungalows again, these were a little more upper class than we were used to and about 5 minutes out of the centre of town. Once we checked in, we were in dire need of a beverage. So we found 'the island', which is a river island across a bamboo bridge on the nam song with many a bar. When I say bar they have a little hut serving alcohol among other things. These are surrounded by other hut with cushions and hammocks where you set yourself up.
We decided to take part in the ritual of Vang Vieng the next day. And that is taking an inflated tractor tyre tube down the Nam Song. This, if you float down without stopping in dry season will take 2 hours. However, there are bars all along the river bed with jumps and lots of alcohol. So it can take as long as you want.
So it took us 7 hours and we didn't even get to the end by dark. It was pretty awesome fun. It would have been a great singles thing as there was many youngins trying to pick up and impress.
Also the local barmen are way to happy to give everyone free lao lao ( local rice whiskey) so you need to pace yourself. I will know for next time. That night we went into town had a couple more drinks and food and then bed.
Needless to say the next day we did very little. In fact matt felt he had sore ribs from jumping from the jumps into the water. And I was a little hung over.
The rest of our time in Vang Vieng we went exploring caves on bicycles, which I preceded to crash and hurt myself. The first cave was great, a small ride but a big hike up to it. The second cave was a horrific ride over dirt roads and then a road made up of just rocks. And that was where I had my stack. The second cave was also disappointing since we were led to believie it had a lagoon in side. We later worked out that we were scammed into a cave having a sign that wasn't for that actual cave.
The rest of the time in Vang Vieng we just chilled and hung around the town. And tried to avoid most of the yobbos and the "friends" bars!
