Vang Vieng

Well we managed to drag ourselves out of bed at 6am and headed into town to our pick up point for the hot air ballooning, after getting a little lost (silly as the town is tiny) we found our spot and were worried to see no one in sight and no pick up! We got even more worried once 630 passed and we were still waiting. Eventually a mini bus came and picked us up and we were off, after a short trip we got to a open field with the hot air balloon out on the ground, it wasn’t long before the flames got the balloon in the air and we all piled on, everyone looked a little nervous as we took off and quickly reached dizzying heights. To my surprise it actually wasn’t scary at all and very smooth the whole way, the views were stunning with tiny Vang Vieng to one side, the river below and the beautiful limestone cliffs to the other side. The only annoying part in the whole trip was whenever the pilot fired the flames I felt as if my hair was about to be burnt off! It was bloody hot! Before we knew it our 40 minutes of peaceful flying was over and we were heading down to a slightly bumpy landing. Next we headed back into town for a quick breakfast and then onto the pick up for our next trip. We were picked up in a tuk tuk with 8 others and headed off to the same rickety bamboo bridge we were dropped off at yesterday, except this time we headed to a different cave which is called the water cave, you cant walk in this cave as its full of water so you are each given a tube and there is a guide rope along the inside and you pull yourself along, the water was freezing and we were moved along fairly quickly (the problem with going in tour groups!). Once we got out we had a short wait and were served a very early lunch which was delicious but we couldn’t eat most of it as it had only been about 2 hours since breakfast! So we ate what we could and left the rest, after eating we headed back to the tuk tuk again stopping at the Elephant Cave we had already seen yesterday. The tuk tuk took us back down river as dropped us off for our kayaking, we were given a quick briefing and we were off, Bec had the front and I had the back, most of it was fairly smooth sailing except for some small rapids and parts where the river is so low you scrape along the bottom! About half way we all stopped at one of the many bars along the river where all tubers go, we both had some drinks and then continued on down the river after the bar Bec was more up for dancing then paddling so I gave the momentum and Bec provided the entertainment. After another quick stop where Bec needed to get into the water, it was all over and we had to return the kayak, shame as I would have been quite happy to keep going down stream for at least a few more hours! After a quick stop off home to get changed we went to a nearby bar on the river and had a few drinks and some pizza, then we headed into town and stopped at another bar to use their free wifi, this bar also had a part at the back with big screen tv’s where you could pick a movie from a huge list and they would play it for you, we ended up watching 2 movies and after Bec had a little too much to drink we headed back home for some well earned sleep.