Vang Vieng

Vientiane (the capital of Laos) didn’t have much to offer, apart from a cold shower after our epic bus ride, some dodgy yet much-needed wifi and a shelter from the torrential rain. So we decided to only stay one night and after much deliberation decided to hire a motorbike to drive ourselves to the infamous Vang Vieng, rather than just hop on another coach.

This was one of the best decisions we’ve made and it was literally awesome. What we thought should have taken 3 hours, actually took us 6 and a half, as despite having spent the last 2 months of our lives in tropical rainy season, we hadn’t anticipated giant pot holes in the road, torrential rain or the fact that an entire stretch of road was flooded to waste-height. These just all added to the adventure though and we made it safely to Vang Vieng. The first half of the journey was fairly standard scenery, but the second half….oh my wow! What an incredible landscape!

Piling the bike onto a tractor to get through the flood

Three very jolly Laos men who were clearly thrilled to be helping

Vang Vieng didn’t disappoint either. We spent our first morning biking around the beautiful countryside visiting caves, water holes, and meandering through rice paddies, surrounded by giant limestone outcrops which just looked stunning!

The view from our £10 per night room...not too shabby!

The town is infamous for its Tubing. The idea is simple…you sit in a rubber tube and float down the river which is fun enough in itself, but then you throw in some bars and some cheap beer and you have yourself a tubing party (or a death-trap which-ever way you want to look at it!).

VV was once apparently a Mecca for drunk and drugged-up young people. It got so over-run with bars and the drug scene became so huge that apparently at the height of its popularity an average of 20 tourists were dying every year here by drowning, drug-induced heart attacks, or other similarly unnecessary accidents. However, according to our friend who wrote the Lonely Planet for Laos, one day the King decided to visit, so the entire operation was shut down overnight ready for his arrival. Nowadays the tourism has picked up a bit, but the dynamic has changed and according to a barman we met who’d lived there for 9 years…”It used to be full of 22-year old drugged up Ozzie lads, and now it’s full of 26-year old Koreans”.

Some phone piccies taken while I tried not to drop it in the water...

We really enjoyed it anyway, met some great people and enjoyed stopping off at the bars along the way to mainly mock drunk 21 year olds making fools of themselves by attempting to limbo and grown men performing the ChaCha Slide (sooo 2004!). Great fun though, and incredible scenery to accompany you as you float down.

Charline, Quentin, Tyler and Bro enjoying a beer at one of the bars

Quentin lost his flipflops further up river, and lo and behold they appeared on the feet of a local lady down river who claims to have had them 'for ages'. Hmmmm.