Space Planet, Vang Vieng

Ok, so all we've heard for ever (from Mr P. Smiley) is about this little town in the middle of Laos where you go tubing. Everyone's like "Dude, you gotta go- it fuckin rocks!" (Maybe this'll clue you into the type of people who told us this.)
So we did and luckily, I survived to tell the tale.

We came here and actually kinda ruined ourselves on the first day. Spent the evening eating pizzas and drinking Beer Lao and headed to 'The Island'. A small island in the middle of the river the borders the town, which is covered in makeshift bamboo bars.
We lay in hammocks in front of a bonfire, drank from our over sized beers while Irish jigs played and felt like (Irish) pirates. It was St Patricks day, and it ended in carnage.

The next day was a write off, but the day after we headed out tubing. You hire a large tube, and get dumped in the river, which is lined with more bamboo bars and ladies yelling out "Free Lao Lao!" Music (bad, nasty Vengaboys style) is being pumped out and there are mad swings from all the bars out over the river. This is like at 11.30 am.

So we drank beers and lounged on the riverside and tubed the rapids. Toby took off like Tarzan and did every swing. We made friends with a German/Israeli couple- and Pascal pushed Toby to greater heights. "Swing longer Toby! It is a swing so you must SWING!. Embarrassingly I climbed one and then climbed back down. It may have been how intoxicated I was, but I just went weak at the knees. Shame.

As the sun was setting, we were drifting down a much quieter part of the river, which is lined by massive karst formations- huge mountainous rocks pushed out of the earth. It was very, very cool. It was beginning to get cold so fifteen of us piled into one tuk tuk- a major feat with fifteen tubes piled on the roof.

We had a great day- it was fun. However, unlike the first girl I met that day- I don't think we will be doing it for 2 weeks in a row. There seems to be some people who just can't get enough and stay in Vang Vieng for weeks just tubing. That's a bit much.

Today we hired a motorbike and went exploring some caves which was really fun. Also we went swimming in the Blue Lagoon- an amazing freshwater spring from one of the caves that was so, so blue. It was beautiful and made me realise what brought people here in the first place. It wasn't the bars. It was the beautiful ruggedness of this landscape and the friendliness of the Lao people.