Vang Vieng

Well the getting up early part didn’t happen! Rudi set his alarm for 8am then when it went off I said I didn’t want to get up kinda joking coz I never want to get up and next minute I know we had both fallen back to sleep and I woke Rudi to ask him what time it was and it was 12 noon! We both jumped out of bed as we had to be checked out of the hotel by 12. We quickly packed up our bag and got organized and headed down and left our bags at reception so we could get some breakfast/lunch! We looked at a couple of little market stalls on the way home and Rudi bought a singlet and we headed back to the hotel to wait for our bus to Vang Vieng. We were told to be there at 1:30 for pickup by 2 but at 2:30 we were still waiting! Eventually a little people mover turned up with 7 people in it already and in we squashed and our bags got jammed in the non existent boot! We thought this was the pickup bus from the hotel to take us to the big bus but to our surprise this tiny ‘bus’ was our vehicle for the next 4 hours. We had quite a few English and other Aussies on the bus and it was quite an entertaining, cozy trip! We arrived at Vang Vieng just after sunset and wandered to find our hotel. After asking for directions we managed to find it fairly easily considering it was dark already! We checked in and dumped our bags in our room and headed back to the Irish bar suggested by the English on the bus who work there! We ordered again on suggestion, but something we had said we miss from home…a pie! Rudi had steak and ale with mash and I had a beef and veg cottage pie! They were absolutely delicious! The “in thing” in Lao is to drink horrible concoctions out of about 1lt buckets…so as my nickname is buckets and I was quite thirsty I ordered the most horrible sounding one! It had vodka, Lao wine, Lao Lao which is a horrible kind of whiskey drink, fruit and orange juice! It was horrid but I got it down and then went on to $2 red bull and Lao vodka! I lost count of how many of these I drank because every two you got one free so they were ridiculously cheap! Rudi had some Lao beer then got stuck into the Lao Vodka and Redbull whilst swinging in a hammock! I wasn’t so lucky to have a hammock but was quite comfy lying on cushions on the little sitting stage we were on! We left when the bar man wouldn’t serve us anymore because we were the only ones there and he wanted to close! He was nice though and we talked to him for quite awhile! We found our way back home and went straight to bed as there is no opium or illegal drugs, gambling or sexual intercourse allowed in the room!