Vang Vieng

Having left early from Luang Prabang, we expected to arrive in Vang Vieng in the early afternoon, but a 5 hour bus journey turned into 10. Within in the first hour we broke down twice and so by the inevitable third time happened the bus came to a standstill and the engine died, by this time we had travelled about an hour. We stopped here for 2 hours in which time a new bus was on it's way and the old bus was being repaired. Just as the old engine started up again, the new bus appeared, but we'd all got off the old bus and didn't want to get back on. After this commotion, we headed off again, but pretty slowly, as the road was dangerous with lots of sharp bends. At least we had lunch to look forward to, provided free by the bus company... or so we thought. By 2pm we thought we must be stopping any minute. By 3pm, we started to get grumpy and feel sick. By 4pm, we thought the driver must have missed the lunch stop and we'd given up on eating as we should have arrived in Vang Vieng by this time. At 5pm, we finally stopped for lunch, worried this was only half way of our journey. Thankfully we arrived in Vang Vieng around 7pm, but were so tired and hungry we had dinner and went striaght to sleep. A real waste of a day!
The main reason we came to Vang Vieng was for tubing. This involves drifting down the Nam Song River on a tractor tyre inner tube. Along the way there are plenty of bars all selling drinks and food, but some included opium shakes, even though it's illegal here. Vang Vieng is the centre for drugs in Laos, we heard so many stories of people comsuming too much and the police accepting bribes off people when caught in possession. We just stuck to beer and I tried the Laos whisky with pineapple juice.
Vang Vieng is a nice, but strange town. It really targets western tourists with tv room style bars mostly showing Friends reruns and walking through town you see clips for about 20 different episodes and people lying on beds in the bars drinking and watching. It's a bit bizarre.
There is also an ex-CIA runway in the middle of town that's not used for anything except dropping off tourists from the buses. It was built to be used during the Vietnam war and now just stands empty. Other parts of the town are really pretty, with the river running through it, little bridges across and also the views of the mountains in the distance.
We had a great time here (despite Colin being a bit unwell on the second day) and are pleased we stopped off. From Vang Vieng we go to Vientiane, luckily only a few hours by bus... we hope.

CIA runway