This little beauty is my favourite place in the world… That I’ve been. It’s a small island about 45 minutes away from Koh Phi Phi by long tail boat. The beaches are whiter than white and the only things on the island are a ranger hut and a small fishing community. The tourist boats stop coming after 3pm and for a small fee your allowed to camp (twice we camped over and twice we had the whole Island to ourselves). Watch our Travel Video – Bamboo Island Camping.

3 reasons to camp on Bamboo Island:

• It is a paradise Island with nobody else there.
• The coral reef just off shore is some of the best snorkelling I’ve ever done.
• It’s right under the nose of the tourist trail but still most people opt for camping on MaYa Bay (THE Beach from the movie “The Beach”)

2: Motorcycles on Highway 1, Laos.

Again it’s another one that most tourists in Laos will pass along but almost none will stop. For me the part of the road between Vang Vieng and Luang Probang is just breathtaking, I’ve heard it gets better the further north you go but if you rent a motorbike and ride it yourself you will see just what I’m talking about – doing this made me re-evaluate the way I travel and made me wonder what I had missed while on tourist buses thundering through the heart of a place. Watch our Travel Video – The Long Way Laos.

3 reasons to ride Highway 1:

• The scenery is epic and the road passes through some beautiful villages.
• A night in Phou Khoun will open your eyes to what real Laos village is like before the tourists arrive.
• Cresting the mountain and looking down to Luang Probang sat on the mighty Mekong is something you’ll never forget.

3: Thong Reng Beach, Koh Phangan, Thailand.

And finally, yet another place that is within spitting distance of the backpacker trail. It’s so close to Haad Rin you can almost see the lights but that’s what makes it such a quiet place. Just around the headland no more than 10 minutes by long tail boat this small cove has it all – cheap beach huts, great food and the feeling of being deserted on a paradise island. Thong Reng beach is one of the few places that as I’ve arrived I’ve thought
“I could live there forever.” Watch our Travel Video – Koh Phangan.

3 reasons to find your way to Thong Reng:

• It’s too close not to go and Koh Phangan has so much more than just the party.
• It’s home to a beautiful resort called Treehouse, with huts right on the sand.
• When you get there you will want to throw your passport into the sea and never leave.

Here for your enjoyment is our article “The Long Way Laos” in full, as featured in the online travel magazine HipCompass Escapes. It’s about our 550km motorcycle trip from Vang Vieng through one of the most stunning countries I’ve ever seen, to Luang Probang and back again…

Adventure travel has always been one of those things that seems to be on my list of things I said I’d do tomorrow, its not for lack of trying but more a lack of having the balls to ignore the negative practicalities and get on with it, but that’s exactly the attitude you need for it… Less thinking and more doing!

A few months ago while travelling through Laos that was exactly what I did, we were staying in the small and stunning town of Vang Vieng, over shadowed by the towering limestone peaks and blinded by the natural beauty around every corner something in me burst to the surface. Every traveler’s done it – during a long but air-conditioned bus ride to some picture postcard beach, pulled out their adventure travel book from their bag for a spot of inspiration on an otherwise uninspiring journey… Been duly inspired but never taken it further. But this time I was determined to do it, my inspiration came in the form of two monstrous looking dirt bikes, the mental image of the bikes sat inside my head rattling around for a few days as I got down to some serious tubing (if you’ve ever been to Vang Vieng you will know exactly what I mean by that and if not… Go see!) Then out of the blue during a rare moment of sobriety the idea, the adventure was born…
To my left the dirt bikes… To my right cloud-topped limestone peaks leading off northwards over mountains and hills and on to Luang Probang.

A day’s planning had informed me we would be looking at 135 km each way and we had a time frame of two days in which to do it…
Our party consisted of three – myself, my fiancee Georgie and our good friend Toby. Toby owned his own dirt bike back in the UK and was no stranger to off-road biking,  Georgie was a very eager passenger which just left me – with limited motor-biking experience, but what’s an adventure without a challenge? The sun was blazing down on the sleepy streets of Vang Vieng and it seemed to be roasting us alive so we bought a map, saddled up and set off with a roar.

We passed through rice fields and small villages, along winding roads and alongside rivers – all idyllic and stunningly beautiful. We made our way over the hills that surround Vang Vieng and back down the other side, the road was smooth enough and any serious pot holes were scoffed up by our trusty steeds with ease. We found a small cafe down by the river as it meandered between the last of the hills and pulled over for coffee and a refreshing dip – it was stunning! The limestone peaks stretched high into the sky and scratched the bellies of the low lying clouds, completely rural and silent at that moment I realised that was what I left home for. Mixed with the excitement of the journey ahead a sense of sadness washed over me, a sense that all my travels before that had been done the wrong way – if I were on a bus I would’ve breezed past and the river and its beautiful setting would’ve  been nothing more that a fleeting glimpse, all the places I may have missed started racing through my head and all I could do was hope that this time I would make up for it.

The journey wound up mountains and back down again, we stayed a night in a tiny town called Phou Khoun far away from anywhere. We woke at 5 am and drove through clouds and we stopped at countless villages along the way. I could write about the hard bits, about the miles, the hills and sore bums but it doesn’t really seem fair. Not when we passed so many warm and friendly people who desperately wanted to go out of their way to make us feel welcome, who call that terrain home and who’s everyday lives make our adventure seem like a walk in the park. The hardships that made it an “adventure” were also the things that pushed us on when we were exhausted. The funny thing is Vang Vieng to Luang Probang is a road well travelled, except mostly on a bus behind glass, reading books as they go – but we really “traveled” it, we felt every mile and every bump and the people we met and the places we stopped at would’ve been missed if we’d taken the bus. A motorbike has the power to connect you to your environment and you have to work with the road not in spite of it… Laos is the most charming country we’ve ever been to, the people and landscape are truly beautiful and those few days were some of the most interesting, fun, hard and rewarding of our whole travels. What it taught me was – the only thing that ever stands between a person and an adventure is the person themselves.

Below is a full length video of the trip so you can pretend you were right there with us, Mucho Mucho Love… Come Join In.

Watch more of our Travel Videos.

Here for your enjoyment is our article “The Long Way Laos” in full, as featured in the online travel magazine HipCompass Escapes. It’s about our 550km motorcycle trip from Vang Vieng through one of the most stunning countries I’ve ever seen, to Luang Probang and back again…

Adventure travel has always been one of those things that seems to be on my list of things I said I’d do tomorrow, its not for lack of trying but more a lack of having the balls to ignore the negative practicalities and get on with it, but that’s exactly the attitude you need for it… Less thinking and more doing!

A few months ago while travelling through Laos that was exactly what I did, we were staying in the small and stunning town of Vang Vieng, over shadowed by the towering limestone peaks and blinded by the natural beauty around every corner something in me burst to the surface. Every traveler’s done it – during a long but air-conditioned bus ride to some picture postcard beach, pulled out their adventure travel book from their bag for a spot of inspiration on an otherwise uninspiring journey… Been duly inspired but never taken it further. But this time I was determined to do it, my inspiration came in the form of two monstrous looking dirt bikes, the mental image of the bikes sat inside my head rattling around for a few days as I got down to some serious tubing (if you’ve ever been to Vang Vieng you will know exactly what I mean by that and if not… Go see!) Then out of the blue during a rare moment of sobriety the idea, the adventure was born…
To my left the dirt bikes… To my right cloud-topped limestone peaks leading off northwards over mountains and hills and on to Luang Probang.

A day’s planning had informed me we would be looking at 135 km each way and we had a time frame of two days in which to do it…
Our party consisted of three – myself, my fiancee Georgie and our good friend Toby. Toby owned his own dirt bike back in the UK and was no stranger to off-road biking,  Georgie was a very eager passenger which just left me – with limited motor-biking experience, but what’s an adventure without a challenge? The sun was blazing down on the sleepy streets of Vang Vieng and it seemed to be roasting us alive so we bought a map, saddled up and set off with a roar.

We passed through rice fields and small villages, along winding roads and alongside rivers – all idyllic and stunningly beautiful. We made our way over the hills that surround Vang Vieng and back down the other side, the road was smooth enough and any serious pot holes were scoffed up by our trusty steeds with ease. We found a small cafe down by the river as it meandered between the last of the hills and pulled over for coffee and a refreshing dip – it was stunning! The limestone peaks stretched high into the sky and scratched the bellies of the low lying clouds, completely rural and silent at that moment I realised that was what I left home for. Mixed with the excitement of the journey ahead a sense of sadness washed over me, a sense that all my travels before that had been done the wrong way – if I were on a bus I would’ve breezed past and the river and its beautiful setting would’ve  been nothing more that a fleeting glimpse, all the places I may have missed started racing through my head and all I could do was hope that this time I would make up for it.

The journey wound up mountains and back down again, we stayed a night in a tiny town called Phou Khoun far away from anywhere. We woke at 5 am and drove through clouds and we stopped at countless villages along the way. I could write about the hard bits, about the miles, the hills and sore bums but it doesn’t really seem fair. Not when we passed so many warm and friendly people who desperately wanted to go out of their way to make us feel welcome, who call that terrain home and who’s everyday lives make our adventure seem like a walk in the park. The hardships that made it an “adventure” were also the things that pushed us on when we were exhausted. The funny thing is Vang Vieng to Luang Probang is a road well travelled, except mostly on a bus behind glass, reading books as they go – but we really “traveled” it, we felt every mile and every bump and the people we met and the places we stopped at would’ve been missed if we’d taken the bus. A motorbike has the power to connect you to your environment and you have to work with the road not in spite of it… Laos is the most charming country we’ve ever been to, the people and landscape are truly beautiful and those few days were some of the most interesting, fun, hard and rewarding of our whole travels. What it taught me was – the only thing that ever stands between a person and an adventure is the person themselves.

Below is a full length video of the trip so you can pretend you were right there with us, Mucho Mucho Love… Come Join In.

Watch more of our Travel Videos.

Seeing as we had to have our beautiful bikes back by 9am or pay for a whole extra day – and we still had about 90km to go it was an early start… 5:30am early to be exact! I didn’t manage a descent nights sleep and after I had woken the other it seemed like they hadn’t either, don’t know why though because although our rooms were “simple” the were very comfortable, maybe we were just over tired. As I staggered out of our room, down the hall to to the toilet I caught a peek of the sunrise out of a small grubby window and it was breathtaking – the hills rolled up and down all the way to the horizon and a heavy mist hung low, the sun coming up had turned the sky bright pink and the mist was just as brightly tainted by the beautiful morning sun.

We got ourselves together and got downstairs to our bikes, the lady who ran the guest house was up and making the first fire of the day to boil the kettle and get breakfast for all the truckers who had stopped over the night. We tried to get ourselves some hot coffee but the water was taking forever and as we all know a watched pot never boils. I rolled the bikes out into the street and checked my oil which was getting pretty low again and Georgie sorted some coffee (we were going nowhere until after some coffee). As soon as everyone and the bikes were topped up respectively we set off into the morning mist.

As we passed through town and along the winding roads they were all buzzing with activity as people went about their business before the sun got too hot. As usual the people we passed waved and smiled, so friendly and so welcoming. The roads were just as fun to drive as the day before and with the cool morning air our bike was running like a dream… Accelerate – change up – ease off – brake – change down – and accelerate… That was how it went for the next 15 km and as we swept around one bend that was completely whited out on one side it became clear that it wasn’t in fact morning mist but low lying clouds and they swept right across the road revealing sneaks of blue sky.

We pulled over again at the amazing viewpoint rest stop that we stopped at on the way up but this time there was no view, it was just white everywhere, even inside the building because they aren’t finished building it yet and where there’s no glass the clouds blew threw as we finally knocked up some hot coffee’s.

Still looking at a good 70km to go we didn’t hang around, coffee down we carried on our way through the clouds. The roads were still lined with friendly people making there way to wherever it was they were going and as we slowly dropped down the hill we started to drop below the cloud and the landscape once again opened right up.

Sadly the ride back only seemed to take half as long and by 8 am we were out of the hills and down onto the flat straight roads again, we opened up the bikes and made some serious headway. We passed a couple of places where we stopped on the way through and they all waved and shouted of course but we didn’t stop again until we got to the little coffee shack on the river, there was a spit of rain in the air but now we were down from the hills things had warmed right up. We stripped off the extra layers had a smoke or two then made the final push back into Vang Vieng, Georgie was loving it from the second we got up but now she was desperate for a wee so we had to burn some rubber and get through the last 15km in record time. We rolled into Vang Vieng at 8:50 and pulled up at our guest house where our bags were stowed in blazing sunshine. We unloaded all our crap and Georgie’s comfort modifications while she tented to her urgent loo call and then we had to return the bikes… Needless to say I really didn’t want to, it was my first real bike and my first real bike ride and what a ride it had been, hard at times and we were all exhausted but I’m hooked… The funny thing is Vang Vieng to Luang Probang is a road that just about every Laos tourist travels at some point except they’re on a bus, behind glass, reading books but we actually travelled it, we felt every mile and we felt every bump. The people we met and the places we stopped would never have been possible if we were on the bus and there is something about a bike that makes you feel connected to the environment and you have to work with the road not in spite of it… Laos is by far the most charming country we have been to, the people are so warm and welcoming and those few days have been some of the most interesting, fun, hard and enjoyable of my whole time away.

8:00 came around and I woke up still feeling battered and bruised, I crept out of the room to get some coffee but the others woke up too. I went outside to tinker with my sweet sweet ride, drink coffee and smoke when the “girls” emerged. Toby had felt proper rough the night before and could have probably done with another week in bed and Georgie was seriously hating the sight of the bikes.

So, all rearing to go we started packing up and strapping our shit onto the bikes, Georgie was seriously considering getting the bus home because the bikes aren’t really made for two people and it was pretty fucking uncomfortable on the back. We got some breakfast and I squeezed a plan out of them – IF we could find a big pillow for Georgie and IF we broke the journey in half then she would come, it would mean an early start to have the bikes back in Vang vieng for their 9 am deadline but at least we would all be together.

We went back to our guest house and finished off packing and strap on Georgie’s cushion, it was another scorching day and we were all sweating buckets so Georgie got down to her pants and sat in front of the fridge for a while until we were ready to go. It seemed a shame not to see any of Luang Probang before we left but unfortunately it just didn’t work out that way, to keep Georgie sweet we dropped her off at Laos Red Cross for a massage while Toby and I fueled up (80000 kip to fill a tank – about £6) and got more oil for my bike and of course a good helping of coffee for our own tanks.

We got back on the road by 1:30 pm and not a second too soon, the heat was melting everyone. We had seen on our map that just out of town there was a waterfall, it would mean a detour and extra miles but on a hot day like that it was the only choice. The sign pointing to the waterfall said it was only 11 km so we turned off the main road and set off up a dirt road lined with small wooden shacks and huts, kids waved and people stopped to watch us pass, the bikes ate the rough track up and it was easy to keep the speed up at around 70 km/h… Fun too!

Turns out the waterfall was more like 20 km off the road but nonetheless the ride was fun and the water was cool, Georgie seemed to be feeling a little better about things with her new comfort modifications and after the track we all needed a wash down. Back on the road and we had to get as many miles behind us as possible.

About 50 km in Georgie leaned forward and said she wished she had taken the bus and was having no fun so the next chance we got we pulled over, I need to check the oil again and we all needed some snacks. Everyone in the village came out to see us, the men squatted by the bikes having a good look, the women stood in a big group nearby chatting and laughing and the children all crowded around Georgie transfixed on the camera and every time she took a pic and showed them they burst out laughing. The small friendly village seemed to lift everyones spirits especially Georgie’s and as we set off again I kept the ride as smooth as possible. We had about another 40 km to get through before the only place with a guest house so we pushed on only stopping to take in another amazing sunset behind  the distant hills. The roads slowly started to wind upwards and things started to get chilly, just as dusk was giving way to dark we pulled into Phou Khoun, a sleepy town on the fork of the road… The only place for miles with a guest house.

We’d made it, 150 km in about four hours although we were all battered still we were all happy and the ride had been just as good as the day before. We got our bikes stashed in the guest house and got stuck into some top class noodle soup, we were the only tourists in town and when we popped out for pain killers and a look around we raised a few eyebrows but everyone was friendly and welcoming as has been the case at every stop along the way. 

We were high up in the hills so at night it got pretty cold… I had to wear a woolly hat! Our rooms were at best “simple” so we sat downstairs watching Laos soap operas and drinking beers until about 9 pm when we were all feeling suitably destroyed to crash out in our “simple” rooms…

Watch more of our Travel Videos.

Despite having far too many days tubing behind us and everyone feeling like they’ve had a good beating we had grand plans… Grand plans of motorcycle adventures. When Georgie and I had rented a moped on our first day we couldn’t help but notice they also had a pair of rather serious looking dirt bikes and that set us thinking – Toby will be here, he loves dirt bikes, I want to learn how to ride one and we should go to Luang probang… See the logic?

I was first up at about 8 am and despite the pain (Toby could hardly move and Georgie was hung over) I woke up the others, it was a beautiful morning in Vang vieng and we all knew that it had to be done. We checked out of our room and found a single room that would look after our bags for a couple of days and then limped along to the man with the motorbikes. I have to be honest and say that I was more than a little nervous because up until then the biggest bike I’d ever rode was a little moped – and never had I tackled a bike with a clutch!

I don’t think they get rented out too often because it took us a good hour to get the hogs started but Toby knows his bikes so I let him do his thing… Then I was up,  Georgie gave me a pat on the back and off I went up the road – I bluffed it enough to inspire enough confidence in the renter but I still wasn’t 100% sure about it so we decided to put Georgie on with Toby for a while until I got used to things.

The bikes were Honda Baja XR 250’s, mean looking dirt bikes with big twin headlights and one a hell of a kick. Once started and warmed up they ran like a dream so before we left town we got ourselves a map and some breakfast, it was a scorching day and just sitting around was almost unbearable so as soon as our baguettes were gone we threw a leg over and hit the road.

We took it steady while we went out of town and I was getting the hang of things pretty quick, I did however miss a gear and make my bike screech spitting hot oil all up my leg. Toby and Georgie followed behind me and after about 15km we pulled over to take in the scenery, Toby had spotted a pretty intense track he wanted to blaze up and I wanted to inspect my bike for the oil leak. Turns out my bikes gasket was in a bad way and the bloke who owns them had just smeared some gasket seal around it which teamed with a smoking hot day and me revving the bolocks off it had forced it to spit… We probably should have been more concerned about it but all we could think about was getting back on the road to cool off. Toby emerged from the track grinning like a fool and we set off once again.

We passed through rice fields and small villages, along winding roads and alongside rivers – all very idyllic and beautiful. We were now making our way over the hills that surround Vang vieng and back down the other side, the road was smooth enough but any serious pot holes were scoffed up by our trusty steeds with ease. We found a small cafe down by the river as it travels between the last of the tall hills and pulled over for coffee and a refreshing dip, it was stunning – the scenery around Koh Phi Phi in Thailand is similar except here there is no sea only the river but somehow it knocked spots off it, completely rural and silent. The swim had only served to highlight just how shagged we all were and it wasn’t looking good that we had barely left Vang vieng and were all feeling it already but when has that ever stopped us. Back on the Baja’s and back on the road. We stopped again at a marker which said “Luang Probang 215 km” this was a slight blow as I had thought it was mere 135 km (Don’t ever listen to the Lonely Planet guidebooks they are full of shit!). With this new information we thought it best I stop and check my oil and buy a bottle for the road, while we were smashing down language barriers with the local motorbike repair man another chap appeared on a push bike who said he was doing the very same journey – sweating like a river he instantly vindicated our big old bikes.

By this point I had this dirk biking down to a T so Georgie hopped on my bike and we set off north, this  time to try and get a few more Km’s behind us.

With every mile the scenery became more and more stunning, we were on the up once again and the straight roads were well and truly behind us. Hills soared all around us and the houses turned from brick buildings to small wooden huts, the local children all came out of their huts as we passed to shout and wave and the road was littered with cows and chickens.

We managed to put 90 km between us and Vang vieng in no more than a couple of hours, all winding roads and sweeping bends, working our way slowly above the cloud base and with about a 40 km/h average speed, we pulled over at a hilltop rest stop for some lunch and to take in the stunning and infinite views back down where we had just come from and across to where we were headed. We had made the right choice, despite it becoming clear that we still had a long long way to go and it was going to be a very long days riding we were all loving it!

Two hours later it was a completely different story… Georgie was starting to get seriously uncomfortable and Toby’s back was killing him, we’d stopped at a few villages along the way for a snack or two but the miles left to go were hanging heavy over us. The fact all the people in the villages would come out and see us and wave like mad would spur us on for another few miles but the sun was starting to set and we still had 50 km to go… We stopped one last time to take a few snaps of the stunning scenery as the sun started it’s decent and turned everything vivid colours, then we sucked it up and made one last knackered push for Luang Probang.

We came over the brow of the hill and started to drop down towards our destination, we could see the mighty Mekong winding through the valley and the sky was turning from vivid flame orange to beautiful warm pink – there was even a rainbow stretching from the hill we had just came from, it seemed like every time we started to flag something came along to remind us how lucky we are to be able to do it, how amazing our journey actually is and the sunset was just one of them.

We managed to get through the winding roads and down the hill just as it got dark and with the darkness came literally millions of bugs, visors down we ploughed on to Luang Probang and by 8:30 pm we finally arrived, tired, dirty and aching we rolled into town on our super duper bikes, found a restaurant, ate in silence and then crashed out at a guest house… It had been an amazing day, one of the best days I’ve ever had!

]]> http://happytimeblog.co.uk/laos/vang-vieng/220609-the-long-way-laos-part-one-vang-vieng-to-luang-probang/feed/ 2 http://happytimeblog.co.uk/laos/vang-vieng/210609-more-tales-from-the-tubing/ http://happytimeblog.co.uk/laos/vang-vieng/210609-more-tales-from-the-tubing/#comments Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:07:14 +0000 Aaron Bradford | HappytimeBlog.co.uk http://happytimeblog.co.uk/2009/06/21/210609-more-tales-from-the-tubing/

With Toby in town and a days recovery under our belts it was finally time to get our tube on with him. Up at the crack of noon we got a quick bite and bought our tubes then piled into a tuk tuk for another day of floaty fun, a beer to start with at the first bar (walk before we run) then it was head first into the buckets.

Toby being quite the Jack the lad he was straight up on the rope swings, hanging by his legs and all sorts… He did however manage to land badly and knock the wind out of himself on the first one and by the time he managed to scrape himself out and back into the bar he was bright red but loving being back in Laos.

By the time we reached the second bar we were all well and truly pissed and the zip wire was screaming out… Drink, drink, drink… Splash, splash, splash.

The whole day carried on the same and as we floated down to the last few bars I’d had enough booze to think a go on the rope swings was a top idea (up until then I had only been swooping about on the zip line) and I also thought that on my first go a full back flip would be the only way to fly… Amazingly, I dropped out of the tree swooped over the river, swang my legs up, let go of the swing and tucked my knees (here’s the important part) UP BESIDE MY HEAD and with all the grace of a professional gymnast flipped end over end until I bombed into the river below. The guys who work for the bar threw a rope and pulled me back in and I stood on the steps to watch Toby have a shot… He grabbed the swing – swooped down over the water – kicked his legs – let go and TUCKED HIS KNEES IN FRONT OF HIS HEAD – flipped a 
few times and hit the water. Almost a success except that when he came up he was totally limp and knocked out cold by his own knees. Obviously anyone who knows me knows that I have a completely healthy admiration for David Hasselhoff and on seeing my man Toby floating down the river like a turd I dived in and swam over with all the grace and speed of a power boat. I grabbed hold of him and started swimming back and the chaps on the side threw me a ring and pulled us back in to shore, Toby had come round again by the time we were back on dry land but he was a little shaky so I left him with Georgie while I got our bucket and got a stiff drink down his neck…

Toby got his stuff back together, got a few more drinks in him and had a couple more attempts at a back-flip but the bad landings and booze had started to take it’s toll, Georgie wisely stuck to the zip lines and on the last bar I pulled another flip and also landed badly, not quite knocking myself out but slapping the water so hard it felt like my whole back was severely sunburned… After that we stuck to the whiskey until sunset when we all staggered back into town for food before bed.

The next morning Toby and I both woke up in agony, battered and bruised from the swings – we felt like death warmed up and no amount of Tiger balm could ease it. Georgie was luckily just suffering from a hangover and all it took was a nice portion of eggs to put her back together…

We’d met a cool bunch of people on the river the day before and all planned on meeting up for a second day of it, midday at the first bar. We got there around 1pm and the other slowly arrived by around 3pm and by the time we got rid of the first few buckets we were sore but rearing to go all over again.

The day followed the same sort of pattern as the previous – too much drinking and too much Tarzan like swinging, but as the previous day… Mucho fun was had. We even managed to start a mud fight at one of the bars which has a couple of big mud pits. Anyway, by the time we arrived back in town for drunken dinner we were all feeling the strain, we had sores on our sores and it felt like we had all been run over by a train. We scoffed our grub down in the way only a drunk person can and then gave our tubes to the kids in the restaurant, they had already started playing with them while we were eating and to be honest we didn’t have the heart to take them away from them. Almost paralysed we all hobbled back to our guest house to shower off, Toby and Georgie went out for a couple more drinks at a bar in town but I was too beat up so I got all basted up with Tiger balm and laid as still as possible…

]]> http://happytimeblog.co.uk/laos/vang-vieng/210609-more-tales-from-the-tubing/feed/ 0 http://happytimeblog.co.uk/laos/vang-vieng/170609-tubing-in-the-vang-vieng-p-s-bye-sarah-hello-toby/ http://happytimeblog.co.uk/laos/vang-vieng/170609-tubing-in-the-vang-vieng-p-s-bye-sarah-hello-toby/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:33:39 +0000 Aaron Bradford | HappytimeBlog.co.uk http://happytimeblog.co.uk/2009/06/17/170609-tubing-in-the-vang-vieng-p-s-bye-sarah-hello-toby/

We have been in Laos for four days now and after our initial day of R&R we woke up with a view to get on it good and hard, as I mentioned before Vang vieng is very famous amongst a certain type of traveller… The piss head. The beautiful scenery hides one of the most infamous stretches of bars in all of South-east Asia a little too well… On the river – the only access is to get a big rubber tube and float from bar to bar. Gallons of cheap whiskey + river x tube = In the tubing Vang vieng…

Sarah, Georgie and I were up pretty early and after my usual morning coffee transplant we went off in search of this mystical place, it’s strange because as a traveller who has never been here we were lead to believe that this sleepy town was all about the tubing but as we found out the Laos “laidback-ness” hid it quite well. We strolled about the town for a while looking for tubes and transport but it took us close to an hour before we found the place.

No more than five miles up the road our tuk tuk jammed full of potential piss heads turned off the main road and took us down a dusty track towards the looming hills and the river, as we approached the distinctive sound of thumping bass broke the peace and all I could think about was how desperately I needed a beer Laos (I’m  not alcoholic it’s just that there is so much advertising for the stuff I was overpowered).

A string of bamboo and wooden bars dot the river on both sides all armed with big speakers piping out lively music, we arrived at the first and got stuck into cheap booze and cheap conversation with the other floaters. It was no later than 1pm but the party mood was heavy in the air, we chatted and drank watching from the bar as people climbed a nearby tree/ladder and flung themselves out on a huge trapeze swing… Looked so fun and I was certain after a few more buckets of whiskey that would be THE BEST IDEA IN THE WORLD.

By the time people started to flop onto their tubes and start floating towards the next bar we were well and truly hammered but it only served to make us want it even more, I splashed straight out of my tube and took a dunking while the girls elegantly floated off, Sarah somehow managed to get marooned but in the end with much laughter and soaking my money and ciggs we clambered up the rocks to bar two…

At bar two they had a zip line which looked infinitely less deadly than the swing so Georgie stepped up and took flight… You will have to wait for the video’s to go up to see it in all it’s glory!

The whole day continued like that and each bar offered something a little different, some had mud pits, some had swings and zip lines and some had bottles of paint they lashed you with as you arrive… They all had free whiskey shots for new comers.

We met some really cool English people who work at the bars and partied with them until the sunset when we decided to head off while we could still see so not to float all the way to Cambodia.

Covered head to toe in paint and mud we staggered off our tuk tuk and back to our guesthouse, got some dinner and were in bed by 11pm – starting so early so hard meant we couldn’t go on anymore… Sarah was sick which is normally a good gauge that mucho mucho fun was had by all…

Monday went exactly the same as Sunday… Wake up feeling rubbish, copious amounts off coffee, breakfast then off to the river to start again… It really is something you will have to see – there is no point in me trying to better describe it because to be honest I don’t fully remember it but Monday was zip wire day we were all over the zip wires all day and apart from one dodgy landing by me (Ouch!) it was top fun!!! I managed to forget to let go at the end and was somersaulted a good few metres into the air before smashing into the water head first… A LOT funner than it sounds.

So thats Laos so far, we love the sleepy little town of Vang vieng and it’s dirty little river secret (the well hidden river bars and throngs of pissheads) and we have enjoyed them to the full! Yesterday Sarah had to leave to go back to Bangkok sadly but to be honest we were glad of a day off and when Toby arrived an hour or so later thank god he wasn’t up for it… But today is another story!!! See you on the river.

With Koh Phi Phi, Thailand and an 18 hour bus ride now behind us we find ourselves in Laos, we never managed to get here the last time around but Sarah was well keen to come and we didn’t take much persuading.

Anywhere that wasn’t a bus would have seemed pretty fantastic after our epic journey all the way from Bangkok but in all honesty I wasn’t expecting to be charmed by Laos the way I have been, at the border we had to pay one of the biggest visa fees we have come across yet and normally if the border pisses me off then I take a lot more persuading to enjoy a country… But no. The journey from the border to Vang vieng was picturesque and we arrived just after 2 pm (we got on the bus in Bangkok at 7 pm the day before) and were dropped right outside a guest house, normally there are touts and tuk tuk drivers fighting for your attention and it’s like being a rabbit caught in headlights but not here. We got our bags and the guest house owner politely asked if we would like to see a room and that was that… 

From our balcony we can see out across most of Vang vieng, it’s a small town sitting in the shadows of soaring limestone hills similar to the ones around Phi Phi, with the infamous river (where tubing happens – more about that later) running between the two. Very quiet and sleepy, the town almost feels deserted at first – even the landscape feels chilled out because the clouds creeping over the top of the nearby hills even seem to be doing it lazily.

Bags dropped we were all keen to get out for a proper meal so we strolled up the road to a little place with a movie on and got stuck in. If there is one thing that you could never forget in Laos it’s the name of it’s national drink – Beer Laos, every restaurant has a beer Laos sign, table cloths ash trays and every shop has beer Laos T-shirts, signs umbrellas and anything else you could think of – everywhere you look, in every single view you will see at least one Beer Laos advertisement!

Needless to say after all that traveling we weren’t much good for anything, the girls decided they were going for a nap but I needed to hang it out and get my body clock back in tune so I rented a motorbike with the plan to go for a drive for a while until they woke up… Georgie is secretly a biker at heart and couldn’t bear for me to be gallivanting around the Laos country side without her so she blew away the cobwebs and got on the back.

Laos reminds me a lot of Cambodia, but it seems everyone has just a little more – it’s clearly not a rich country although when we passed through the capital city of Vientiane I saw several high end sports cars the likes of which I’ve never seen on our travels. There are no hassles here and everyone seems happy, I don’t mean friendly locals and smiley people I just mean in general they seem happy – with life maybe?

We took our shabby little moped from one side of town to the other passing beautifully rural scenes and always in the shadow of the stunning limestone hills, then we set off across a bridge towards the hills to get a closer look, the road was atrocious but it’s nothing super biker Aaron can’t handle and we bounced along next to rice fields enjoying the beautiful scenery with the only passing traffic consisting of cows… We only rented the bike for a couple of hours to get our bearings and feel for the new town and new country and by the time we returned it that nap that Georgie wanted to have had managed to catch up with her so off she went to bed – apart from dinner in the evening we didn’t manage to do anything else, I can never understand why travelling takes it out of you so much its not like we actually have to do any work but still by 9 pm it was most definitely time for bed…

So far so good Laos has charmed our pants off and we are excited to be in a new country, our friend Toby has touched down in Bangkok and although he has had a change of plans we should still be able to meet up sometime soon. Sadly Sarah is leaving tomorrow and we will be off exploring on our own for a while but Laos will be a place we love I think, it’s cheap too which is a good thing for what’s left of our budget.