A funny anecdote

Just have to share this incident with everybody, definitely an evening to remember.

When taking the bus from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng we got to chat with a Canadian couple and their twelve year old son. They were out travelling South East Asia for ten weeks while being inbetween jobs. When we arrived to Vang Vieng we kept on bumping in to them where ever we went.

After spending the whole day tubing on Saturday we sat down for some food and of course we soon heard the familiar voice of Andy (the husband in the Canadian family). He had been sent out by his wife and son to buy sweets and was expected to bring it back as soon as he got it. But apparently Andy had different plans in mind and gladly joined us for a beer...or two..or three.. Until we all lost track of time and amount of beers we had bought. After what must have been three hours Andy suggested we should eat the sweets he bought with the idea he could just buy more later. With the sweets gone and more beers finished we decided to move on to a club to hit the dance floor. Andy seemed to think this was an excellent idea and joined us there too.

After dancing for a while (Andy being the oldest person there and also one of the most popular after showing of his dance moves) I heard another familiar voice behind me shouting "this is inappropriate!". And guess what? Andy's wife had been everywhere looking for him, starting with the bars and moving on to the clubs. He turned his head down and slowly followed his wife back home, trying to explain what happened to the sweets and what he did on the dance floor with a bunch of youths at one o'clock in the morning.

I wish I knew what he answered.

Tubing in Vang Vieng

Whenever you tell somebody you're going to Laos you'll get the response "Laos is awesome, you must go to Vang Vieng and do tubing". After reading stuff like "husband died in tubing tragedy" and "tubing is fun, but take care, many people die every year" we were not to tempted anymore. But since Vang Vieng is basically all about tubing we decided we couldn't leave without at least trying once.

Doing tubing is basically like going on a massive pub crawl. You rent a tube, get dropped off on the top of the river and left to float down in your own pace. Along the way there are maybe 20 different bars on each side, and it's up to you to decide on which and how many you stop and have a drink at. Some people we spoke to said they only made it as far as to the second bar before sunset. Some others stopped at three or four and instead of getting pissed, enjoyed floating around the river and look at the stunning view over the mountains.

We did something in between and together with a British couple managed about six bars. When you were tired of just floating around, you just had to give the bar staff a wink and somebody would throw you a roap and drag you in (we all started to feel a bit like fish). On some of the bars they had slides and ziplines, other had a nice rooftop there you could stay and sunbath for a while. When the sun set behind the mountains and we were still paddling to reach the final stop, we decided to give up and get a tuk tuk back to town. It had gotten way to chilly and our arms was sore from all the paddling.

Think I speak for the both of us when I say tubing was a lot of fun, and not at all dangerous if you have just a tiny bit if common sense.

In Vang Vieng

We are finally in Vang Vieng after a very bumpy eight hour busride over the Lao mountains. The road was straight in intervals of three meters during the whole journey! So now we are treating ourselves to fruit salad and Lao coffee before going out tonight.