Vang Vieng - The longer version

Once I got on a tuk-tuk to the bus for Vang Vieng where I said good bye to Andy, I said hi to Terry, a Kiwi living in Oz. This resulted in lots of fun over the last few days. He had made the acquaintance of Sian and Jim, a young married couple and the best story tellers I have met in a long time. I can’t imagine a dull moment with those guys or better companions for exploring caves and tubing down the Mekong. Their rather impressive blog is at www.travelpod.com/members/sianandjim and it is well worth a look. Yesterday we cycled 6 km on a dry rocky road to one of the caves (and back). When we got there, we had a well deserved swim in a natural pool which was deep enough to swing in to (so believe it or not I did - but not very elegantly). Then we had what the guidebook described as, ‘a 200 meter stiff climb’ up to the cave entrance. I nearly turned back a few times but eventually got to the top and it was so worth it. The light and rock formations inside were beautiful. Terry went right inside a few hundred meters through the caverns and Sian and Jim hung back a little as it was around 4pm by that time and we were all considering how the hour-long cycle home was best done in daylight. I was sticking close to the exit of the cave dreading the trip down but I didn’t need to worry as Sian was a star and talked me through the first 20 or 30 meters for which I almost had my eyes closed. In a wicked twist of fate I got so cross with someone else who was delaying my efforts (by stopping me to tell me stories), that my fear of heights faded into the background as I told him in no uncertain terms where to go and I managed to get down the last part of the hill on my own. Looking back, I think that was the funniest thing that happened that day. Jo Foley, the owner of the lovely MayLyn guest house where we are staying, is taking some people who are interested and fit enough on a two day trek to an area off the beaten track called Tam Nam Ao Hou or something like that, a place that normally doesn’t see many humans except perhaps for the occasional monk. They will be led by a local guide who will cut through the undergrowth with a machete as they go. Terry is one of the team which is going – they are sure to have a great time. They looked a motley crew as they set off this morning. I would have loved to go and can’t wait to hear the stories but I’m not fit enough (despite all my recent cycling) and I can’t imagine being stuck up a mountain in this country, when I wasn’t very happy with heights on the mountain near home in Adrigole – there just aren’t that many helicopters in Laos. The guest house is 10 minute walk from town across rickety wooden bridges. Initially, I was drawn to the place because Jo is described as a ‘character’ and he happens to be Irish from Waterford. He has a big heart and when he is in the restaurant you know about it - I fully understand why many of the comments on the internet are concerned more with his character than the way the guesthouse is – he built these wooden bungalows on stilts himself with his experience as a carpenter in London. There is a lovely relaxed atmosphere here because of the ways the hut-bungalows are set out in the garden, the cosiness of the restaurant area and we are away from the town where most of the bars are set up for backpackers to watch back to back episode of telly series. We have everything within a stones throw except internet but that is no big shame and the staff are lovely. The only down side (if you can call it that) is the rooster that is making his call every hour or so right outside my hut. At 4am there was some very strange drumming in the distance which I will make some enquiries about today – it could have been monks performing a ceremony, a strange sounding tractor or we could have (as I suspected when it woke me alone in my dark hut) been under attack by a group of river bandits. Anyway it woke me up properly so I am now up and hovering and preparing a very wordy blog which I will post when I next get to the internet cafe. Yesterday we all went ‘tubing’. Initially, I thought that tubing sounded like a backpacker phenomena of the worst kind (and some might still say it is) but I had a great time so I can’t agree. We walked to the town at noon to queue for our inflated tractor tyre inner tube and set off on a little bus about 3 kilometres up the river where we sat into the tubes and started to drift gently (for the most part) down the Mekong with towering rocks/mountains on either side. Straight away there were locals calling for our attention from the banks as they offered us the chance to jump from platforms in an effort to sell us beer. We were in the company of people who had experienced all this before so we were guided to our first and best jump off point by them. As we approached, men offered us outstretched bamboos with which, if we held on, they could pull us in. The place we stopped off in was about 30 minutes from the start and we stayed for more than an hour, some playing volley ball and some jumping from a high zip-line or swing. We set off again so that it wouldn’t get too cold and dark before we finished. After 2 beers the whole event took on a new dimension. The ‘rapids’ we came across swept away my sun glasses and as I went to retrieve them, my dress slipped out of my hands and my flip flop, which I had been using as an oar, started floating down the river – with only one ‘oar’, I started to travel in circles so my efforts to recover my possessions were fruitless but funny. In the mean time, Ingrid’s tube started floating off without her in it and Jim’s tube took on a puncture so he started sinking into the 10 inch deep water. Jim soon caught up with Sian and they made the rest of the journey close to each other. As we got near the end, the boys rowed the girls home which was a lovely touch and some local kids got in on the action and helped us to finish the journey, for a fee of course. We came back to the guesthouse where a pre ordered (?Tilapia) fish BBQ was waiting for us and it sure was tasty. I think today will be a hammock and internet day.