"Excuse me, do you know how far we are from the tubing place?"

When the 17 year old Brit asked Justin the above question about how far we were from Vang Vieng it finally dawned on me exactly what we were getting ourselves into. I had heard rumours and seen the infamous "tubing videos" but like most things nothing really prepares you like experience. And what an experience it was. I can't remember all of it and most of it is NSFB (not safe for blogging,) but Vang Vieng definitely ranks up there on the fun-o-meter. We got into town in the late afternoon, and after getting ourselves set up at the guesthouse the boys from my trek recommended we went to explore. Vang Vieng the town is not very pretty. But the surroundings are gorgeous. Set in a lush river valley, surrounded by densely covered green cliffs, Laos is stunning. But VV itself seems to be in a prolonged state of haphazard development. Development which I would guess is going to be underway for at least the next ten years. In the meantime there are plenty of bars and restaurants endlessly playing Friends and making french fries to satiate even the drunkest Brit. Since apparently they "love Friends."

While wandering around we wandered across the bamboo bridge to the shanty town with the most important landmark in town - the Bucket Bar. It was early so nobody was there except some employees and some hardcore drinkers but one of the bartenders gave us all the important details about Vang Vieng - mainly when and where to get free buckets of whiskey. It turns out that if you time it right you never have to spend a penny on drinks in VV. And when you get your free bucket at the Bucket Bar, you can pour the liquor yourself. It seems they don't mind making stiff drinks because the mix is more expensive than the whiskey. So that pretty much sums up the whole VV experience except for the tubing, and the sandwiches, which was about the only things we did or ate for three days.

Tubing, which we only really did once was unbelievable. You show up at the top of the river with your tube and right away you get a free shot, or six. In fact most people don't even make it past the first three bars because they just ply you with free shots, rope swings, diving platforms and zip lines. Oh yea and one place has free french fries. But we did actually manage to release our hold on our shot glasses and tube down river. After our fist night in town Justin and I had met and made friends with Mike and Mark of Scotland and Wales respectively. And so we were tubing with them. Over the course of the day we managed to also pick up, Luke, Tom, Luke (Tubes,) Ciaran, Jaylene, Travis and a whole other whack of tubers. We stopped at the mud bar and played mud volleyball and had mud tug-of-war. We went to the massive slide, which I later found out is deadly. I did manage to make it down the slide OK, although Jaylene (not brown haired,) landed hard on her back and still has a bruise. I also successfully did the rope swing once. The second time was not so successful. But at least I wasn't seriously injured like some. We were all actually pretty good about avoiding the acrobatics while completely inebriated.

There isn't much after the slide bar, but actually that was the really beautiful part. No bars or loud drunks just you in your tube with all that scenery around. If only the river had been higher we would have really enjoyed it and not have been constantly scrapping the rocks and getting stuck. We decided to get out early because of the late hour and shallow water and take a tuk tuk back into town. The six of us became a bit of a posse, well except J and Travis because they hightailed it out of VV the next day. But the guys and Lize had quite a party over the next two days.

I got propositioned to have sex with a guy from each of the Celtic nations in one go. That's Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, in case you were in doubt. It was quite difficult to turn that one down, but I managed. My inner slut hated me though. But don't feel too bad for me I managed to have plenty of fun in VV. Thankfully though Justin and I had discussed not getting stuck there and so after three days we were definitely ready to go. And so we bid adieu to the delicious street sandwiches, which we had be living on, and the Tiger Whiskey and made for the capital. From here we are heading down to Siem Reap in Cambodia early tomorrow. But we have enjoyed Vientiane and particularly loved the COPE exhibit about the USA's covert bombings in Laos which have left the country horrifically scarred, literally.