Wow what a place. Four hours North of Ventiane. You have to check out the photos, a beautiful place with those steep hills you see in post cards. It looked just like a post card actually.
We booked into Vang Vieng Orchid guesthouse and stayed for the next week.
We chilled out, went on a tour which involved trekking through jungle and mountains, magnificent caves, streams, and kayakking down rapids, and finally jumping off a high rope swing monkey style. Wynne did a double back flip summersault into the water. It looked good on the 5th attempt - the other 4 times hurt pretty badly. Hope the video is able to be viewed. Lauren had a crack at it but had a couple of bad accidents and hurt her back a little causing headaches and backache for several days.
On your way down river, just in case you were thirsty for a beer (because it is very fine weather here), there are people in the middle of the river on rafts with beer on the end of a fishing pole. Fantastic - they think of everything!
Then we met several great people, played our addictive game Settlers of Catan. If you havent played it - dont! It is simply too addictive, and causes all sorts of withdrawal pangs when you cant play it! You have been warned.
The cafes and resturants all had big screen TV's or projectors, with large cushions and beds everywhere so you could recline or sleep - whilst watching your favourite movies or sit coms. Awesome! We loved it (some people dont like it for some reason - something about being too touristee????).
One of the kiwi guys we met invited us to his local bar, which he owned and operated with his girlfriend. Apparently his girlfriend was having a going away party because she was heading back to England. We went along but the lights strangely were off. We went in and there was only 4 people there. Strang for a going away I thought.
What happended was in the process of trying to get his lights to stop flickering, he had climbed up the pole and got electrocuted. So there he was stuck to the pole because he couldnt let go. He passed out and then proceeded to fall a couple of metres backwards onto his skull - which got pretty damaged. They shipped him off to accident and emergency (which is pretty dubious anyway) and patched him up a bit. Being the good natured party animal he came back to the bar with a very bloody bandaged head - against the wishes of the doctor who wanted to send him 4 hours to Ventiane for further treatment. We left early and had dinner.
