Vang Vieng is well known as a place where you can get all sorts of drugs, from opium to hash. But no “happy pizza” for me as travel is my drug and I got my high from 5 days of non-stop action. I could have spent a lot more time in Vang Vieng, but we can always go back. After walking around town in complete amazement at all the bars and restaurants where people sat around watching TV all day and all night, I ended up joining them that first night because they were showing a football match. So I had a late night with a few fellow Irishmen.

A little groggy the next morning I started slow, but by the afternoon I was ready to do some exploring so Amie and I headed off to check out a cave. The cave was cool and there was a nice view of the river, but the real fun was getting back since we followed this trail that went cross country over fences and along rice paddies, even down a river bank until it ended up in this little village where we found a track that led to a bridge close to our hotel. Right by the bridge is a place where local people drove their cars into the river for a makeshift carwash. They also had these tuk tuks that we called rotatillers (and they call a "Japanese buffalo") that would ferry people and motorbikes across the river and normally get stuck halfway across. That night, we had a roast with Yorkshire pudding for dinner, a special treat that I probably have not had in 12 years. It was wonderful! And then back to the bar for another football match. This time I had an early night since we had booked a trekking/kayaking tour for the next day.

We started the tour with a trip to some caves and then got into inner tubes to explore "Water Cave," which was great fun. First we followed a rope line by pulling ourselves along, hand over hand. Once we got to the end of the line, we paddled forward until we could touch the bottom and then we walked to another stream where we once again set off paddling, but this time we had to interlock our feet so we would not wander off into the complete blackness of the cave. The guide had a light, as did the last person in line, but the rest of us could barely see the person in front or back of us. We did this for about 500 m before turning back but we were told that the cave stretches over 20 km and it would take over a day to get through it at the speed we were going. It was amazing to see the sunlight after so long in the dark.

After a quick 1 km walk, we had a nice lunch and then we went to the river where we launched our kayaks. I thought I was going to share a kayak with Amie but since it was only my second time in a kayak and Amie’s first, the guide went with Amie and I had a single kayak for myself. We were told that once we were through the worst of the rapids we could switch, but until then he was afraid that we would capsize. We started out on a flat stretch but soon hit a few rapids which were great fun but also a bit frightening. In most places the water was not very deep but every couple of hundred meters there would be deep spots where the locals would build jumps or swings where you could hurl yourself at the water from all sorts of heights. Not being a great swimmer, I declined the chance to receive a life-threatening injury and forfeit the rest of the kayaking experience.

The strangest thing about kayaking down a river in the middle of Laos is that some of the rocks move. And no, not just after a few Beer Laos. Some of the rocks in the middle of the river turned out to be water buffalo, cooling themselves in the water with just their noses and horns sticking out. Once we got to the area where they do the tubing, we noticed the river slowed down a lot. At one of the stops, Amie decided she would like to try a kayak on her own so I called the guide over and asked him to give her some instructions. “Paddle!” he shouted as he pushed her out towards to fastest flow of the river. I guess after watching me for most of the day, she picked up a few pointers and had no problems. She had so much fun that she decided to go down for a few kilometers by herself and the guide and I shared the double kayak. I had noticed earlier that Amie wasn’t paddling while she was in the double kayak, and I thought she was just being lazy but as soon as I started paddling, the guide asked me to stop since he felt I was interfering with his rhythm and, as he explained it, it was his job to paddle. So there I sat in the front of the kayak with the guide doing all the work. It was just about this time that we started passing most of the inner tubers and they must have thought I was the laziest person in the world as the wife paddled along side of us. Luckily, Amie began to tire soon so she asked if we could swap back. Once again I had a single kayak and was able to finish the journey with my ego intact.

The next day, to give ourselves a well-deserved rest, we decided to try the inner tubes – where all you do is sit in a large inner tube and float down the river enjoying the view. Unfortunately, at this time of the year, the river is a little slow and you spend 3-5 hours traveling a little less than 4 km. Admittedly the 5 hours does include a few stops for beer. We took about 3 ½ hours to go down with only a couple of stops because of that whole drinking responsibly crap. Towards the end of our journey, where the river was shallow and rather slow, a few kids waded out to us and pushed us to speed up our progress. Then when the river deepened, they would hop on the side of the tube and paddle along using their flip-flops. I had 2 kids on my tube and Amie had one and at the end they, of course, wanted payment but were happy to receive 10,000 kip ($1.00) between them.

One of the things I wanted to accomplish on this trip was to learn how to ride a motorbike since I’ve never had the chance before. On our last full day in Vang Vieng, I talked to this guy who rents bikes and asked him to teach me. So we drove to the abandoned CIA built airstrip and went about 100 m up and down and suddenly I was qualified to rent a motorbike so off I went on my own to get a bit of practice before I tried it with Amie on the back. Amie and I went back to the airstrip and about ½ hour later felt we were ready to tackle the main road so we could visit the Organic Farm a few kilometers outside of town, where we ran into some Canadian friends and whiled away the afternoon eating and talking. The good news is that we survived our adventures in Vang Vieng and I highly recommend it to any traveler who reads this. Just make sure you get off your arse, stay away from the happy shakes, and enjoy all nature has to offer.