VangVieng

Throughout Thailand, Vietnam and Laos, travellers would mention this place to us because of one thing: Tubing. It's not floating down a river on a tractors inner tube that they would talk about, thought - it's their new , the injuries they saw, and how several people die every year on the massive rope swings and giant slides!

We took a seriously sweaty bus with the lads from Luang Prabang to the capital, Vientiene, and stopped there while Tim extended his visa. After 5 hours, in which Kae bought 2 new dvds for 5000kip each, we were happy to be moving on from the slightly depressing city and towards the tourist hole of Vang Vieng.

Kae and I found a room on a cliff edge with beautiful views of forests and sheer cliffs, and unfortunately overlooking the late night clubs. Walking around the small town and we heard The Simpsons, Family Guy or Friends on repeat in every otherwise identical restaurant, serving the worst food in Laos. There are easily twice as many Westerners than locals, and everyone has the same idea - get drunk and go tubing! So we put on our sheep's clothing and joined the herd.
Happily, the Northerners we met in China were about, and we joined them for some drinks and went rock climbing with Tom the next morning, where we learnt the 'pinch' technique. So there we were pinching our way up rock faces, and for all the sweating and pinching and struggling, it was great. We did two climbs, a level 6A and 7A climb, but my pinching wasn't up to the 7A climb.
That afternoon Kae and I went to meet the lads at the tubing, where we saw the huge rope swings and riverside bars. I hadn't the strength in my grip to open my can of beer, thanks to a slow and painful defeat on the 7A rock face, and couldn't hold onto a rope swing. There are better reasons not to swing back and forth 40 feet in the air with potentially fatal consequences, but mine was weedy forearms. In any case it was pretty spectacular to sit and watch. There were a couple of dangerous moments where people got tangled up in the ropes, one person round the neck, and although they screamed and panicked a bit, no-one was hurt.

A couple of days in this town was enough for us. We had been enjoying the Laos lifestyle and people and Vang Vieng had neither, so we left for Tha Kaek, and a 3 day motorbike tour.