We caught a bus from Vientiane to Vang Vieng which is about 150km north. It was a really pleasant drive, even if the bus didn't have air conditioning. Vang Vieng was a bit of a one horse town. It was very quiet and they base the town around 'adventure tourism'. If you want to you can go caving, white water rafting, mountain biking etc etc. I'm not sure what the health and safety criteria are for the companies that run these tours, however my suspicions are that they are non existent.
We only had one day in Vang Vieng so decided to do what just about every
body does, and go tubing. This involves getting driven in a tuk-tuk about 4km out of the centre of Vang Vieng and getting dropped off at the side of the river with an old tractor tyre inner tube. You just launch into the river and leisurely spend the next 3-4 hours getting back to town. It was quite nice and slow going with a couple of minor 'rapids'. There are bar/restaurants on the way down the river that will pull you in with big poles if you want to stop. We stopped at one for a snack towards the end which was quite cool. They all have big swings and jumps into the river that you can do also. Lianne did a swing/jump one from about 8m which was quite scary whilst Tony decided that he would just hold the inner tube to prevent it from floating away.
body does, and go tubing. This involves getting driven in a tuk-tuk about 4km out of the centre of Vang Vieng and getting dropped off at the side of the river with an old tractor tyre inner tube. You just launch into the river and leisurely spend the next 3-4 hours getting back to town. It was quite nice and slow going with a couple of minor 'rapids'. There are bar/restaurants on the way down the river that will pull you in with big poles if you want to stop. We stopped at one for a snack towards the end which was quite cool. They all have big swings and jumps into the river that you can do also. Lianne did a swing/jump one from about 8m which was quite scary whilst Tony decided that he would just hold the inner tube to prevent it from floating away.That night we just had dinner at one of the restaurants. This is a bit of an attraction in itself in Vang Vieng with many of the restaurants set up with TV's that blare out 'Friends'. You can just wander around and decide which series/episode you want to watch and lie down at the tables with the pillows provided. It is quite bizarre watching one episode whilst being able to hear another 4 getting played round you.
Neither of our nights in Vang Vieng was late as we had TV in our guest house and could watch the two singles finals of the French open tennis. This was quite good, even if the commentary was in Laos!!.
After a fleeting visit, our next stop was to be the World Heritage City of Luang Prabang...
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