We left Vientiane, not because we wanted to but because time is ticking and we had to! We decided to get a VIP bus as it would have been the same price as a local bus and a tuk tuk to the station. It's so annoying travelling with other Westerners en mass; all they do is complain! The roads were a bit bumpy but nothing like what we've already experienced and one guy was saying "how can they call this a tourist destination if the roads are shit?"... We couldn't believe our ears! Then he decided to sum up Laos for all within earshot, "Laos. It's just bedbugs, shit roads and shit food."... People like that don't deserve to be travelling in the first place. Laos is fast becoming our favourite country so far, it has such friendly, laid back people and such a rich culture, the food is amazing and the beer's cheap, yes the roads are a little bumpy but that just adds to the character! Anyway, rant over.
We arrived in Vang Vieng that afternoon and checked into a guest house. Vang Vieng, we'd been warned, was a bit of a 'traveler's haven' but for the wrong reasons. It used to be a place where weed was readily available and added to smoothies and pizzas for a little extra charge. This however has changed as the law has clamped down on it. We were there for the limestone caves and the legendary tubing. We went for a lovely lunch at the Organic Mulberry Farm Cafe, we both had a smoothie (minus the added extra) and a chunky soup each. Yum.
We strolled around town that evening which didn't take long as it's quite a small place. We'd decided to book onto a caving and tubing trip the next day so we got that sorted. After that we strolled a little way out of town where people suddenly seemed much friendlier, we came across a bamboo bridge which led to an island but all we found were guest houses and bars, so we strolled back. We had dinner at a spot full of locals, the owners and cooks were sitting with a table of locals and we felt guilty wanting to order food! It was good grub though so I'm glad we did!
At 9am the next morning we were ready to go and waiting for the rest of our group. We got chatting to a French-Canadian couple, Michelle and Pierre, who we got on really well with for the duration of the trip. We were all piled into a jumbo and given dry-bags to put our stuff in. Half an hour and one very bumpy road ("Laos' shit!") later, we arrived at a river crossing which we got across in a small boat. On the other side we walked through rice fields and couldn't believe our eyes, the limestone cliffs were absolutely gorgeous, quite reminiscent of the ones in Halong Bay at the beginning of Vietnam. We arrived at a small cave opening, Tham Nam Cave (or Water Cave), that had a tributary of the Nam Song River flowing out of it. We were each given headlamps and a tube and had to pull ourselves inside the small entrance on a rope. Once inside it was amazing, the curving, water eroded cave lead us deeper and deeper into its belly. The whole cave system was about 500m long and gave our arms a good work out, especially at the end where the rope ran out and we had to paddle our way to a mini-beach of rocks, against the fast flowing current. We had to crawl through a tiny tunnel for about 15m and were greeted by a big cavern with beautiful stalactites. We crawled back to our tubes and let the current take us back the way we had came. It was an awesome experience that you can't help but feel would be spoilt with health and safety in England!
After the walk back through the rice paddies we were shown around Tham Sang Cave or Elephant Cave as it is known, rather cleverly because there is a big rock inside that looks like an elephant. We couldn't help but think that it had been carved into the cave because it was uncanny, but we didn't want to spoil their fun and went along with it. The same cave also had a Buddhist shrine and Buddha's footprint!! Wow, we've seen the actual footprint of Buddha... how he managed to step into a ready made rectangle of drying cement is beyond us.
Lunch was next and it was really good. BBQ kebabs with loads of vegetables and chicken for Phil. We had huge portions of rice and a baguette each, our kind of sized lunch! Up next was crossing the river again in the boats and getting back into the jumbo... only this time there was only one so the guides said, "who wants to sit on the roof?", "I do, I do" Sion shouted whilst trying to tone down her excitement! So we climbed onto the roof with the guides and Michelle and Pierre and off we went on the bumpy road from whence we came. We were able to use life jackets as cushions on the hot metal that we were sitting on which actually made the journey quite comfy, well, almost comfy.
We arrived at the Organic Mulberry Farm which is where the tubing began. Whilst we were getting kitted up we saw a HUGE spider, bigger than the one Phil had seen in Singapore, it was massive, easily bigger than a hand. Sion kept her distance (especially when the guide tried to catch it on his ore!) whilst Phil went for a closer look. Euw!! It was time to get away; it's a 4km trip down river back to town, armed with a life jacket and a tube each off we went with our group and our guides kayaking alongside.
It was so much fun, like nothing we'd done before, being taken down river by the current and splashing about like kids. That's when the surreal part of this tubing started to become apparent. In Vang Viengs quest to appeal to the stereotypical backpacker the locals, who probably used to live peacefully along the river, built bars to entice the tubers. They throw ropes to passing tubers and pull them in to enjoy a beer or cocktail! It was very odd, a few minutes upriver we had complete quiet and now we were in a music war from the bars! Our group headed into a busy bar that had a dance floor, volleyball court, table tennis table and a huge rope swing into the river! We just stood there in our lifejackets not really believing our eyes. After watching these already quite drunk people dancing in the middle of the day (odd people) we decided to watch the swing and have a beer. Pierre had a couple of goes and Sion had just built up the courage when the queue got big and our group was moving on. Off we went along the river, Sion made friends with a little Belgian girl called Emma and kept her company every time she drifted away from her Mum. The next bar we stopped at pulled us in again on ropes and we went to the bar to buy a beer. This bar had a swing too so Sion and Michelle climbed up the bamboo ladder to the platform above. It was high and quite scary waiting in line. Sions turn came, she grabbed the padded handle of the swing and took a leap of faith off the platform; "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE", she swung back and forth a few times before letting go at the height of the swing, SPLASH!! Great fun!! We then sat by the fire as the combination of the shade from the limestone cliff this bar was built around and the dampness of our clothes had made us a little chilly.
After that bar we took about half an hour to float the rest of the way back to Vang Vieng town whilst watching the sunset behind the cliffs. It was such an awesome day, there was only one way to finish the trip off- with a pancake from a conveniently placed stall by the tube return station! The caving was great fun and the tubing was surreal. It strikes us as the most dangerous bar crawl in the world but having only been to two of the bars we were fine, we couldn't help but wonder how some of the cliental were going to make it back in one piece before nightfall.
That evening we went to dinner in one of the tacky bars in town, it was hard to believe our eyes but loads of the bars had Friends playing on the TV's and had huge lounging areas for tired tubers. Next stop is Luang Prabang, we're so glad we stopped in Vang Vieng, but a day and a half was long enough for us...