Near death experiences in Vang Vieng

On the way to the cave...NamSong river
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That's right...I was injured in Vang Vieng!  I'll explain later!

After leaving the gorgeous Luang Prabang, we were preparing ourselves for the not so pretty Vang Vieng.  This preparation involved taking a VIP bus there, and Nichola doping herself up with Dramamine thanks to the impossibly windy roads and vertiginous roadside drops which our double decker bus was navigating!  Jodie assures me the scenery was gorgeous...

Incredible caves and cool springs...

Tham Chang caves in Vang Vieng
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Arrived at about 1pm, and struggled to find guesthouses as our Lonely Planet SEA on a shoestring is, for want of a better word, SHITE.  There are no maps for VV which is actually a large-ish place; considering it's a backpacker hub, there really should have been a map.  This isn't the first time we've been rendered map-less by that book.  But we walked in the heat in true Jodie and Nichola style, and eventually found a decent Guest House for cheap cheap - Namsong Gardens at the north end o' town, just up from Jaidee's and the other bucket bars. Dumped our bags and had a wander around this haven for drunkards...we were REALLY freaked out by this place initially.  Once a sleepy Lao town, the tourists have REALLY taken over and the locals have lapped this up...there are terrifying bars full of tourists watching reruns of Friends and The Simpsons.  Maybe they've forgotten they're in Asia?  We couldn't figure it out, but it was WEIRD.  We heard horror stories of tourists puking all over the roti stands, with the vomit cooking on the hotplate.  We saw people with half their faces scraped off thanks to tubing; we saw horrible fat tourists wandering around in bikinis and shorts (and horrible skinny ones...PUT IT AWAY PEOPLE).  No regard for Lao customs whatsoever, which kind of pissed us off. but there's nothing you can do but go with it, so we ignored them and enjoyed ourselves anyway!

Kim at the cool spring
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Vang Vieng is home to the phenomenon that is Tubing!  Normally we wouldn't be sucked in to doing anything as touristy, but holy crap it was amazing fun!!!!!  On the 26th we woke early and headed to the tubing place...pay your 55,000 kip + 60,000 deposit, sign the disclaimer which claims the company isn't responsible for injury or death, jump in your tuk tuk with 7 other pasty tourists and you're off!  We were driven 4 kms north of town, dropped off next to the NamSong river, and you're then left to your own devices.  Provided you get back and hand your tube in before 6pm you'll get your deposit back.  So we jumped on our tubes and floated down the river, stopping at bar number 2 which was playing Modest Mouse when we arrived.  I almost had a heart attack as it's been AGES since we've heard any decent music...here we were treated to MM, Queen and Stevie Wonder WOOHOOOOOO!  So, we reached Bar number 2 and the wee Lao guy chucked a rope which we grabbed so he could pull us in.

Us in the spring with some locals
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Every bar has a death defying rope slide or zip line of doom...we chose not to partake in the madness of the slides as it looked STUPID!  But we met Kim and Michelle at the bar (met on the slow boat and in LP), and Kim was making the most of the slides...she's a hardass I tell ye!  And that's the way our day continued...floated down the river, stopped at a bar, drank a beer lao/G+T (but not too many, loving parents).  The bar 2nd from last was HILARIOUS as it had a mud pool...we were slipping and sliding all over the place, trying to play a game of mud volleyball but our opponents were far too drunk boooooooooo!

Us pre-jump
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Then we floated back down to the bamboo bridge after the last bar; if you leave it too late this is where you'll get GREEDY tuk tuks...keep 10,000 kip each for the journey back home).  If you don't spend time at the bars you'll be able to float right back down to town.

Had a TASTY dinner at Ban Lao restaurant...their green and red curry is tremendous, especially if you get it Lao style with sticky rice!

The following day we met up with Kim, hired bikes for 10,000 kip each and checked out the Tham Chang cave...after a couple of wrong directions we made it there.  And this was where the injuries occurred.  First of all, I kicked the bike wheel and a chunk of nail came off my big toe.  It didn't hurt, but it looked RANK!  SO that's near death experience 1.   When we did end up on the right track, we cycled to Vang Vieng resort which is the only way you can get to Tham Chang.  Be warned, you get charged for your bike, AND for your body...2000 kip for bike and 2000 kip for your person, we chose to leave our bikes chained up and walked the 15 minute walk to the cave.  And it did not disappoint.

Sunsetttttttttttttttttttttt
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You've also got to pay to get in the cliff, and after being unable to convince the woman that we were locals, we had to settle for paying the foreigner price.  Had to climb up a heap of stairs, and we were rewarded with a breathtaking view of the surrounding cliffs, countryside and VV.  And the final reward was an inredible cave!  MASSIVE, with stalagmites/stalactities and a few different routes to take...sections were lit up with coloured lights and we even took it off-road for a while with our torches as there were a few lesser travelled routes within the cave.  It was just amazing, so we spent quite a bit of time in there taking too many photos. Once we were done, we checked out the cool spring at the bottom of the stairs (if you face the cave at the bottom, turn left).  The spring was GORGEOUS!  We saw a few tourists swimming in the water, then saw some locals washing in the beautiful blue water.  Unfortunately none of us had swimming gear...BUT ME AND KIM jumped in fully clothed hahahahahahah!  It was amazing...you could swim into the caves and around the rocks...gorgoues blue, red, green and purple dragonflies where flying around and landing on us (we hoped it was magical rather than the reality which was probably that they were pooing on our heads).  It was amazing.  And lovely Jodie took photos...some of the locals kids tried to throw Jodie in the water, but he reversed the attack and made a kid shit himself by pretending he was going to throw him in hahahaha!  Kim ended up getting covered in seaweed so we left it at that, and walked back to our bikes soaking wet!  Had some munchies at the Aussie Sunset Bar, watched the sun set, then spent the night being lazy as we were heading to Vientiane the next day.

So yeah, we didn't get as badly injured as most people do in Vang Vieng, but Nichola did return to the hostel with a massive bruise on her knee.  It was a fun place, but take it with a pinch of salt and don't take it as a true representation of Lao!