Tubing on the Mekong River and cycling in the Vang Vieng Countryside....then on to Vientiane for Christmas

So this is the day I tell you about tubing down the river.  A legendary thing to do in Laos Vang Vieng.  So I had said to meet up with Amanda and Aoife but I didn't get up in time and was umming and arghing about going there alone.  In the end I gave myself a kick up the arse and decided to go for it - I could always come back home if it was crap on my own!  I headed over to the shop where you pick up a tube - its basically an enourmous rubber ring which comes from the inner of a tyre. Not too expensive to hire it but then you have to leave a deposit as well, and if you return it late they either take all your deposit or part of it - or you might not return the tube at all!

Afterwards you get in a tuk tuk truck which takes you 3 km down the river, and you have to wait in the truck until more people arrive to go down there.  I was really lucky as I got in the truck with some really nice people.  An aussie couple who i met briefly on the bus to Vang Vieng and 3 other girls.  Viivi and Laura travelling together from Finland and another girl called Pauline who was from another country in the netherlands but i can't remember where - oops!  We were all quite nervous about the tubing as didn't know what to expect.  We get down there and basically there are bars and more bars, well shacks that are bars, all built along the side of the river.  You chuck your tube on a pile of others at the side of the bar and grab a drink.  You have to be careful not to loose your tube as people loose theirs and take one and sometimes if you are late you end up with no tube, so you have to keep an eye on the pile to make sure there is still a tube left for you to take back - it doesn't matter which one as long as you have one!

So we all got a drink for dutch courage and after that we climbed into the tubes, it was surprisingly nice and calm although the current is faster than you expect, and you don't really have any control over the tube, you can paddle a bit but its hard to direct it!  as you float past the bars they chuck out a rope with a float attached which you grab hold of and they pull you over to it.  Basically tubing is just a big bar crawl!!  Quite a few people went a few days in a row and after the 2nd day they didn't even bother getting a tube and just caught a truck down there and went to a few different bars as you can walk to them they are that close.  My first day we made it to 4 bars which is more impressive than some people as they usually only make it to the 2nd bar!

Unfortunately I have no pictures of tubing but i may be tagged on some from facebook - i didn't want to take my camera just in case it got wet or broken.  In the end though it was a great day! We didn't make it all the way down the river because by the time it was the 4th bar the sun was going to be setting and its 30 minute drift down the river back to town so we crossed over the bridge and got a truck back into town.  We were 15 minutes past the cut off time of 6pm and they tried to keep all our deposit but we kicked up a fuss and they only kept a bit of it - cheeky buggers!

Anyway - we decided to all go back to our places and shower and change and meet up for dinner an hour later.....then carried on partying until far too late!  It was a pretty mad night as we ended up going over to an Island nearby when the bar shut where I spent ages chatting to the owner and an ex-pat.  The party broke up when a local plain clothes police man turned up with a gun in hand (mum don't panic please!) to say to everyone go home.  I've never seen a bar been closed and people depart so peacefully and quiet.  I think the only reason for this is because Laos is still an old fashioned place with a curfew so when the police say go home, you go home!

Pauline left the next day for her next destination but I made arrangements to meet Viivi and Laura the next day as we said we wanted to go tubing again but actually go all the way down the river properly without drinking! well we did meet up but were very very hungover.  We went down to the river but I felt so rubbish I decided to leave after a short while and collapse back in the hostel :-)

People slate Vang Vieng as being just a party town full of bars showing back to back friends and family guy but I have to say it made a nice change after everything else to veg out in front of a tv chilling out.  The next day I was fully recovered and Laura and Viivi had left for their next stop so I decided to hire a bik and go and see a bit of the countryside - best decision ever as the town of Vang Vieng isn't that nice to look at but the surrounding area is beautiful.

I did actually manage to break my camera so I have no pictures of this either :-( I cycled way out into the countryside on these dirt track roads for about 3 hours - it was hard bloody work at some points but I got to see some real villages - rather than ones there for tourists trying to sell you things.

The next day was my 6 hour bus ride to Vientiane!  Well I booked my VIP bus again, but this was certainly no VIP! I had heard about these things happening but there isn't much you can do about it.  I was sat next to a Laos guy for the journey who also lives in America and was on holiday - i seemed to meet a lot of them.  We talked a bit but not a huge amount and I spent the long long journey listening to my Ipod and then sleeping when the bus stopped rocking me from side to side after we got off the mountain roads.

So I didn't have anywhere booked up for Vientiane but had done some research on where a big block of different hotels were by the river and got a truck up there from the bus stop.  I tried a couple of different places but ended up in one called Riverside, a proper hotel with a good bed, good shower, good air con and a lift! The room was so cool with the air con I even decided to make myself look nice by blow drying my hair each day!

As usual my first day there I didn't do too much, that evening I went out for dinner and ended up chatting to two english guys who were very entertaining and told me some very funny stories about how they inadvertantly took part in a great race type thing and all the stuff they had gotten up to as the "british team" by default as no one else really entered from england!

The 2nd day I decided to go and try and find the COPE centre - a rehabilitation centre I mentioned before for people who have lost limbs due to the unexploded bombs. I walked quite a way but it was hot so decided to try and take a tuk tuk, i stopped a driver but it took  far too long to try and explain where I wanted to go so took to my feet again.  In the end it was only another 15 minute walk down the road to get there and was well worth it.  The visitor centre there shows films telling you all about the history of Laos and the unexploded bombs and land mines.  A very very sad story.  In brief, during the Vietnam war, America waged a secret war against Laos that they didn't tell anyone about (and back then no one knew about it) because the Vietnamese were crossing into Laos to get to South Vietnam.  This lead to America making Laos one of the most heavily bombed countries in the world.  So many people died back then and now they are still left with thousands of bombs which haven't exploded. The kids go out into the countryside in search of scrap metal to sell or pick up these cluster bombs which haven't exploded and play with them and then they go off and kill or maim them.  The film I saw was made by the couple I met in Luang Prabang and told the story of an aussie bomb disposal expert who went there to train "big bomb" teams in how to defuse these bombs that are still being discovered all over the place, mostly near schools and villages or buried underneath paths.

I saw another film afterwards which was the most moving one and actually made me cry as it told the story of a young boy playing with friends who picked up a cluster bomb which went off.  It killed most of his friends but he was only badly wounded.  His parents managed to get to him and hired a truck to take him to hospital....only to find that there was no blood or oxygen there, they then travelled to the next hospital miles and miles away to find the same thing.  They couldn't even get to the next hospital as it was too far and had to persuade the truck driver to take them and their dying son back to their home so he could at least dye at home.  Its just too awful to think that they only reason he died was a lack of medical facilities and makes me emotional to even write about it now.

Anyway after my visit there I took a walk around the town a bit more and looked around the markets and stuff.

Christmas Eve I managed to find an english pub I had walked past during the day that was advertising a christmas dinner but was closed everytime I did walk past it.  I went in there and got chatting to an old guy probably about 60 odd - what is it with me and these old men - none of them are even chatting me up!  But again, a really interesting person - was a writer and had done all sorts of things over the years so was a nice way to pass the evening.  So the pub was offering a xmas dinner the next day with all the trimmings and it wasn't cheap but thought it might be a good way to spend the day and hopefully meet some people.

Christmas day 2009 I woke up and went for beans on toast for brekkie :-) then an amazing aromatic oil full body massage that cost me a whole £6! After that I went and got spruced up for my lunch.  I turned up at the pub and got chatting to a few people but most of them left after the lunch - couples off to do couples things :-).  The lunch itself was ok - enourmous and not too bad but not the same as at home - but it did feel a bit more like christmas day at least.  I wasn't sure what to do afterwards when the people I eat with left but decided to go and have a gin and tonic outside and see if I could talk to anyone.  And I did!  I ended up chatting with an American girl called Alexis, another american woman who I don't know the name of and an aussie guy called Simon.  He was there visiting some locals that he knows and was meeting up with them that evening and said that Alexis and I were welcome to join them.  It's one of those moments you go - hmmm why not!  His friends - two women, came and picked us up in a minibus van thing and we went off to this very nice river front restaurant.

The Laos people are so funny and definitely like a drink - like the other family I met, we were never short of beer!  The took charge of the ordering and I had no idea what they ordered and I even tried ducks bill!  Work out what it is for yourself! It was interesting but not something i'll be eating again :-)  After dinner we went into the bar area and danced for a bit and then we ended up getting some crates of beer and sitting outside their house until about 5am!  A very random but completely fun Christmas day that I don't think can be topped for something different to do.

Needless to say after all that Boxing Day was a day to spend sleeping and recovering :-)  The next day I took another mini plane back to Bangkok for the night - where I discovered Lou and Yazz were arriving and we didn't even realise we were going to be in Bangkok at the same time!