Vang Vieng

Hooray, we got to Vang Vieng! On the road to Vang Vieng, we had stopped for yet another wee break, when we saw a group of guys with big guns walking up the road - boy did we hustle back in our car! Yowz, we were scared because we had read about bandits, but luckily, they paid no attention to us, phew!

So when we got to Vang Vieng, we managed to find a little gem of a place to stay - it is right by the river and has a great wooden verandah that opens straight out to the river and the most stunning mountain view. We were all very excited by the view and settled into our dirt cheap rooms - aaaah, bliss.

Vang Vieng is a party town. The main strip is a bit like Bangkok's Khao San road - not a compliment - full of cafe's and restaurants showing 'Friends' on a loop. But the main activity there is the tubing. Tubing is basically sitting in a big donut shaped inflate tube and floating down the river. When you feel thirsty, the bars along the river bank throw you a rope and you pull yourself in. When you pass under a bridge, people pass you a beer. It's great. The bars along the river vary in size and are sometimes just floating platforms, but who cares?

One of the main attractions of one of the bars is the Flying Fox. Basically, a big trapeze that you can swing yourself off from a platform and then splash into the river. It's great fun if you like that sort of thing - I was too scared to do it. That platform was high, man! Also, I saw some people get it very very wrong and it looked just too painful. Most people though are high on something or other, so maybe they don't really feel it. Phil and the other guys had a go though and did very well as you can see from the pics! Very brave!

After this exhausting day, we managed to get back to the Guest house, clean ourselves up and hit the town for some more action!