"Vang Vieng Welcome".. The salutation from our bus driver all the way from Luang Prabang for 8 hours across bumpy roads, throught tiny villages up into the mountains, and then back down again on very windy roads! This journey was completed with one final stretch of long very bumpy huge potholes and rather a lot of mudddy water sploshing about avoiding the cows, chickens and ducks that were wandering home for the evening, coming to a halt at the bus station... We arrived! And what a town it is... Hmmm not actually a lot of "sights" as such here, however the scenery (now the sun came out today) is stunning, huge karst rocks shooting up out of the fields and massive cliffs all over the place. We are staying near/just on the river at the organic garden, dont actually think there is anything organic about it, however we have a nice beach hut type thing and the food at the restaruant is really good.
We went Kayacking yesterday, which was great, though We werent very good and managed to miss the landing point...oops, so the guide had to take a swim to come get us and drag the kayak back upstream, poor bloke! Funnily enough he suggested that me and matt had a guide each and didnt do any more kayaking together... hee hee! Matt lucked out with the english speaking guide, and I had to make do with expressive gestures and sign language, which is a bit difficult when you have a paddle in your hands and are sat in front anyway!! ha, was good fun, and quite liked the rapids, didnt actually have to do a lot, so took a few pics of the scenery, which really do not do it justice, and there was lot of clouds and rain also. Saw a lot of people at the river bars which hav been created for the "tubers" people get in big rubber rings then float down the river stopping off at the bars for food drinks and the numerous rope swings, soe of which were really high I was too chicken. One of the girls from our kayackin group gave it a go though, however I think she took in some river water which totally put me off!!
We are off to Vientiane tomorrow - reportedly the most laid back capital city on earth, so quite looking forward to that, and they apparently have some good french restaurants too.
Oh yeah, the flying fan refers to our bedroom wall fan ( I have always had a bit of a fear of these things). It has been making the most tremendous racket every time I turned it on, and this afternoon got really bad, i was looking at it wondering whether to just turn it off and the front cover flew off, followed by the blades, which landed in the corners of our room! Needless to say, it has been replaced by a much nicer and quieter freestanding one. Air con in the next place I say!!
