The journey from Luang Prabeng to Vang Veing was 6 hours and I think our most uncomfortable to date. We were in a minibus but it was so cramped for some reason, amy and I had no room at all. Plus the roads were so windy and bumpy it made me feel a little queasy. We arrived, having stopped at a viewpoint and a couple of food breaks, at around 4 or 5 I think. Our hostel was called Real Vang Vieng backpackers and was quite nice, pretty comfy and clean.
We checked in and hung around the hostel for a while and then went for dinner at a bar opposite the hostel called the kangaroo bar. Kate, Becki and I had the Beer Lao burger with cheese and Amy had a veggie sandwich. The burger was advertised as the best in Vang Vieng and I'm a real sucker for an advert like that, I wouldn't want to miss the best burger in Vang Vieng! The burger was pretty good, and seeing as I didn't have another in Vang Vieng it was the best I had there. In the evening we went for a few drinks at the kangaroo bar, it played some real cheesy classics so I was a fan.
The next day we had a relaxed morning wandering around the town and after lunch we took a tuk tuk down to the river to go tubing. Vang Vieng is quite famous on the backpacker circuit for tubing so we were looking forward to it and it was the main reason we came to the town. They basically hire you a rubber ring and you float off down the river and occasionally stop at a bar along the side. Nowadays there aren't many bars open but we weren't really there for that (unlike some of the others there) so it didn't matter. We ended up hanging out with two girls that had shared a room with Becki and Amy in Chiang Mai which was really nice. They were a really good laugh and one of them ended up pulling us down the river because there wasn't much of a current so we were pretty stationary for a while until she volunteered. We drifted down the river for a while with a boy from Israel called Aviv that tried to turn us into a choir, failing quite spectacularly and giving up quite soon. Becki hadn't been feeling very well for the last couple of days (it seems to be going around because it seems to be pretty similar to the illness Amy had) but she had perked up for a couple of hours which was really nice.
We got back to the hostel and had heard about a Mexican restaurant that was apparently quite good so we went there for dinner. Sadly it was a huge disappointment. Amy and I shared some fajitas but the portions were tiny and there was just no flavour, we think they must have forgotten to add the fajita flavours. Kate and Becki were equally disappointed with their burritos and chimichangas but Becki wasn't feeling up to eating still so Kate, Amy and I got some pancakes on the way back to the hostel.
We met up with the girls from tubing later in the evening and went to a bar called sakura down the road from our hostel. Becki wasn't feeling great still so stayed in for the night and we came back after about an hour or so and had an early night ready for our journey to Vientianne the next day.
Vang Vieng was good fun but I definitely preferred Luang Prabeng as a place.
