Vang Vieng

Day One – Mud Glorious Mud!

We are still on the bumpy bus, not getting any sleep whilst trying to spot our stop in the dark.  Eventually we were dropped off at 3.00am in Vang Vieng with only one Tuk-Tuk in attendance and with no idea where our hotel was! We had no option but to be ripped off by this Tuk-Tuk driver, he knew it at we knew it, we paid well over the odd’s (which was after we negotiated it to half his original request) for about a half mile journey.

The good thing was that Shelley ensured the hotel we booked had a 24 hour reception and so we were quickly given the key to our room so we could get some sleep for what remained of the night.

In the morning we found we had a nice shared balcony overlooking the street.   We then headed out to get some cash out and get a spot of breakfast at a nearby café.

After breakfast we went for a look around town to find out what we were going to do for the day.  One of the main reasons coming here was on the recommendation of Daz & Kath’s crazy tubing stories, so after a while wandering around we found the Tubing company and decided to do it in the afternoon.

So we went back to our hotel to relax for a while and then we put on our swimmers and bought a cheap dry-bag from a nearby shop and made our way back to the Tubing people.

We paid our fee’s, signed the disclaimers and soon we picked up our tyre inner-tubes and we transported to the first bar alongside the river.

When we got there the party had already started with free shots and plenty of beers.  It was here though we were informed only two bar’s are allowed to open along the river everyday due to the many accidents/drownings in previous years.

So this being the case we stayed in the first bar for quite a while sinking a few cold ones, then one of the drunk girls from pre-Laos border crossing night came and chatted to us and got us involved in a game of beer-pong with her travelling buddies.  Basically if someone gets a ping-pong ball in your beer you have to neck it, if you get  it in your own glass everyone has to  neck their beer and then try and flip their plastic cups over so they stand up, last one to do so has to neck the evil drink in the middle – quite stressful and Shell was about ½ a second away from drinking a Vodka, Tequilla, some sort of cocktail with an infusion of fried rice number!!!  It was after this close call we thought we would drop out of the game.

Before setting off down the river we thought we have a couple more beers and we got talking to a couple from Middlesbrough, Ross & Ally who were really nice and we agreed we would head off together down the river to the second bar.

 

We got into our rubber tubes and started off slowly meandering down the river taking a few pictures along the way, unfortunately the second bar that was open was only a couple of hundred yards down the river, so we were out again and sitting in the bar.

The bar was very lively with rave music and a guy dishing out laughing gas balloon’s, so we sat there drinking with Ross and Ally watching the younger back-packers playing mud volleyball and getting naked! 

 

After a few more beers we then agreed to play Ross and Ally at mud volleyball, wading in mud up to our knee’s we were just about to start play when Shell declared that one of her sandals had been sucked off in the mud and she could not find it.  So the game was abandoned whilst everyone wallowed about in the thick mud for around 15 minutes trying to locate Shell’s footwear – sadly to no avail and a piece of Shelley will now be forever in Laos.

 

Finishing our beers and washing off the mud in the river we then got back in our tubes and carried on down the river, slowly meandering round its bends for around another half hour.  Shell was getting a bit cold and our time was running out to get the rings back in time without getting fined so we decided to stop at another small bar close to the town, we had another quick drink then we got a lift back into town with our rings and returned them just in time.  Tubing Rocks!!!

 

As it was early evening Ross, Ally and ourselves found a nearby bar and stayed there and partied for the rest of the evening (well until around 10pm).  We then walked, Shell limping with one shoe, back to our hotel, making a quick burger stop at one of the food stalls along the way.

 

Day 2

Waking up later and feeling slightly delicate we headed out and found a place for breakfast and to decide what to do for the day.  As Shell was now down to two options on the shoe front (Walking Boot’s or Flip-Flops) and me having one pair of shorts with more holes than a tramps vest we thought we would try to address this by going shopping.

About an hour later with no joy and me not really feeling in the mood for shopping we thought we would go for a hair of the dog in a restaurant alongside the river, which was pretty nice and scenic.  Whilst we sat there watching the boats and canoe’s go past we realised that we were not up to much adventure today so agreed that we would relax at the hotel and try and catch up with the blog for the rest of the afternoon.

We had agreed to meet Ross and Ally in the evening, the only problem being Ross had given us the name of a bar to meet in that was not on our map and that Google Map’s decided was somewhere the other end of town where it wasn’t!  It also seemed to be a bit of a mystery to the local’s too as they had no idea where it was either.  So we had to return to the hotel to text Ross to ask him to meet us in the bar from the previous night.

So Shell and I made our way there and propped up the bar and had a few beers hoping that Ross had got our message.  After an hour our two we were just contemplating moving on when they walked into the bar.

The rest of the evening was spend drinking and being entertained by the bar owner, who did card tricks, carved up pineapple’s for us to eat and even put on a fire dancing performance for us.  He also threatened to get out a guitar and sing for us later in the evening – it takes some doing to be a bar owner in Laos!! 

Having enjoyed each other’s company for a few we did the usual swap facebook details and agreed we should all go home as we both had early buses to catch the next day, so we said our goodbyes and returned back to the hotel for the evening.