Matt & Sarah's Big Trip: Vang Vieng

A little behind with the blogging, but catching up now... Our previous stop in Laos was in a town called Vang Vieng which lies in a beautiful valley with rolling hills on one side of the fast flowing river and huge, towering limestone karsts on the other. GORGEous. Sorry.

Anyway - the town's a bit like marmite. It's completely geared up for young western backpackers to stay in cheap accomodation in town with way too many loud bars. All set in one of the most beautiful places we've ever been to. The locals aren't too impressed but are all busy cashing in.

We decided to stay just out of town across the river in some beautiful thatch cabins looking out over the karsts.

Not a bad view for £5 a night...

We had three nights here in total (not bad considering a spider bigger than my outstretched hand greeted us in the cabin one morning...). But by far the best day was when we took to the water for a day.

Mr Alex Frost, a big thank you for this wedding gift - we definitely think you'd have enjoyed it! We booked with an adventure agency to take us 30km upstream in the morning with kayaks, for us to spend the rest of the day paddling back over rapids, stopping off to explore big caves and enjoy some of the bars as we got back into town.

The rest of the crew (from Singapore)

The scenery was just stunning all the way along the river...

Not steering or paddling - just sitting. Again.

There are some famous caves North of Vang Vieng which we stopped off at. Jumping in inner tubes, we floated to the cave entrance (only about 10 inches high once you get in) and then pushed ourselves in using hands and feet... pretty scary stuff, especially considering we went about 300m into the mountain! Our guide got a bit twitchy that it was raining outside, so we had to turn back. None of us disagreed...

Mind your head...

Jumping back in our kayaks after lunch, we came further downstream to where the tuk tuks drop the tourists off with their inner tubes to float downstream. This is where the river gets a lot gentler, but the banks are spotted with big bars with touts that throw ropes out to drag you in to their haunts!

We eventually accepted a rope from a bar with a huge homemade concrete slide (lined with kitchen tiles for added slipperiness) and a zipwire that launched from a flimsy bamboo platform. What could go wrong?!

For the first time in our blog's history, say hello to moving multimedia. Hello.

Sarah forgot how to stop and start this, but it makes for a good effect!

A local man told me that if I hold on until the end of the wire,

it will help me do a somersault. I failed. Miserably, and painfully!

A really brilliant day that we decided to top off with a good meal and a night out on party island. Sarah managed to sniff out the only restaurant that has sold cheese in the last 2 months...

Goats cheese.... amazing!

Before heading out to party island to watch the sun set, the beer flow and the fire dancers do their thing.

Cheers!

And then the rain started. And it got heavier, and heavier and heavier. We stuck it out for a bit, but after a while decided we'd better head off on a 10 minute flip flop dash across town! We were soaked within 10 seconds, but had a lot of fun dashing through the streets in the heaviest rain either of us have ever seen!