Vang Vieng

" Take it easy, take it easy,
Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy."

Take it Easy - The Eagles

We had agreed to sleep late this morning, but for some reason I was awake at 7 and couldn't get anymore sleep. I decided to sit in the garden near the Nam Song river and catch up on some blogging, chewing away on one of the tangerines that the driver had given us. By the time I finished blogging the ground around me was covered in pips, since every particle seems to have at least four in these tangerines.

There's several caves in the area surrounding Vang Vieng and after breakfast we decided to walk to the nearest one, Tham Jang. The weather was cloudy today but the temperature very nice, making this an enjoyable stroll to start the day.

The cave itself was nice as well. After climbing the long stairway you had a great view over the area. Inside the cave had various pathways leading to different parts, most of them lit by colorful lighting. Paul got asked to pose with some crazy Asian kids and we once again used the fortunetelling sticks. The water at the cave's mouth was very nice and we could have gone swimming ... but we had other plans.

After having lunch at the Luang Prabang Bakery (good but relatively expensive) Paul went out to rent a motorbike and cruise the area while Ad, Mieke and I went tubing. Tubing is basically floating down the Nam Song river in a inflated inner tractor-tire. This in itself is relaxing enough but along the 4 km stretch of river various bars have been placed where you can go for a drink before floating on .

.. or so we thought. Too late we would find out that almost all bars were located in the first kilometer of the route Our second mistake was being too fussy about the bars we'd wanted to have a drink at (this one's too crowded, this ones not lively enough, this one plays crap music, this one's not in the sun). Eventually this resulted in us only visiting one bar! If only we'd known.

When we floated down the river empty water bottles tied to ropes would come flying to us. This was how the bar staff pulled you in. Getting out at 'our' bar we were immediately given a shot of Tiger Whiskey and shown to the campfire where we could warm ourselves (there was hardly any sun today). Some of the bars along the river have all kinds of insane swings, jumps and slides.

Of course I had to try the swing en jump which 'our' bar had. Especially the swing was scary, imagine jumping of a 10 m high platform and letting go above the river on the highest point of the curve. ;-) The route itself takes about 2 hours to float through and when we arrived back at Vang Vieng it was getting a bit cold. We returned the tubes and headed back to the resort to get a warm shower.

In the evening we ended up at the Kangaroo Sunset restaurant, a place owned by an Australian and run by Irish Paul and his Thai girlfriend. The food was great and Paul played songs by The Beatles, Dire Straits and The Eagles from his iPod, resulted in a slightly crazy night with lots of Beerlao. Imagine trying to teach Thai and Lao girls how to do the twist and you'll get the picture. ;-)