Laos Update!

Day 52     Vang Vieng

Today we slept in until 9am and had breakfast, we needed to leave at 12 noon for vang vieng so Heidi and I chilled in Joma cafe until then (the obsession with Joma could be to do with free wifi..). Not a particularly busy day today either as the bus journey then took most of the day. Vang Vieng is really beautiful. We went down to the river where they do the tubing and it looked quite mellow. Then we went along the banks a bit to a bar which the tubers stop at and it was crazy. Basically, tubing here.. you get on a tube at the start and they paint stuff on you and give you crazy headbands then you float along the river which is lined with bars and you only float for about 2 minutes before reaching the next bar, then you get given the free alcohol that place is offering to attract the crowds and the alcohol is served in buckets and very strong, these bars play clubbing music really loud and have rope swings, slides and ziplines into the river. This is not normal tubing. Everyone there was so drunk, I've never seen so many people so drunk, people could barely stand and all their eyes were weird from too much alcohol and people had cuts and bruises everywhere, even slings. So now I understand why there are several deaths here every year... I had already decided it was not for me but this confirmed that perfectly. We then went for dinner and that was okay, you got a free bucket with every 2 meals ordered and free shots all night.. really not my kind of place. I don't mind people drinking but they seem to drink themselves senseless here. It's weird because Laos is so quiet and not that much going on. Plus 25 days with the same 3 people is way too much now, I could spent years and years with Heidi though :). BYE.x