Vang Vieng….tubing and shaking!
Tuesday 28th November 2006
We arrived in Vang Vieng on 24/11. We spent our time there visiting a cave called Tham Jang (Tham Chang). This cave was used as a bunker in defence against the Chinese in the early 19th century. You walk up quite a few steps and get to go into the caves. At one point there is a platform outside where you can get a good view of the town. Very picturesque. After we had visited the cave we went swimming with the locals in the spring at the foot of the cave. Very refreshing.
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The highlight of Vang Vieng for me was tubing. No it wasn’t the TV bars – by this i mean that there are a string of bars in this place that have the TV blaring and generally it is either ‘Friends’ or ‘The Simpsons’ or a film. These bars are filled as well with travellers just loving getting their fix of TV – obviously been deprived of it for too long. There are also bars here that do ‘special’ or ‘space’ or ‘happy’ shakes. These I will leave to your imagination but you can apparently get a good mushroom pizza here and there too. Anyway, back to tubing…..this involves floating down the Nam Song River in an inflatable rubber ring making obviously compulsory stops along the way at various bars for some Beer Laos. Yummy stuff. We spent the whole day doing this, as well as me doing a swing from one of the platforms smack into the river, that was refreshing! In the bright sunshine it was great and met loads of people. We went two days running we loved it so much.
This morning we caught a local bus into Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. You can book VIP buses and all sorts of air con and fan jobs but oh no, me and the Janine girl, we opt for the hardcore traveller stylee. With the locals, ‘normal bus’ they call it. Luggage gets strapped on to the top of the bus, which has holes in it by the way. The bus is rammed with people by about a third of the way into the journey. It takes 4 hours from Vang Vieng. No need for air con, most of the windows didnt exist so kept up a freezing cold chilly breeze at 6 in the morning. That wakes you up. Bring on Vientiane.
Tags: caves, Laos, Travel, tubing, Vang Vieng, Vientiane
georgiebees
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