Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng it sounds like something out of a movie, either the name of an evil villain or maybe the real home of Count Dracula.

Vang Vieng is a 9 hour bus journey south from Luang Prabang, it apparently has amazing views however it was night time when we did the journey and all we could see were silhouettes of the mountains which looked beautiful but couldnt get a good photo of them (damn cameras and there need of light). We arrived at about 3am and stumbled to the nearest guesthouse.

In the morning, the Laos sun was out in full force and we proceeded to lug ourselves towards the town centre. Town centre is a bit grand, the streets are currenly mud with large dangerous channels running down each side of the road (at somepoint they will probably become drains). The place is pretty small and everything that is there is pretty much to do with the tourists, the people who live there either run or work for a business providing tourist services. Actually about 5 years ago there were people living where the tourist centre is but now they have moved a little bit further out.

We found a nice guesthouse called the Babylon, funnily enough run by a ex real estate agent from Beckingham, London (my bro lives there you see).

There really isnt too much to do in Vang Viang which doesnt involve either drinking, eating, smoking or the river. You can buy what they call "Happy Shakes" which have various illicit ingredients and have varying effects. Every two minutes you are being asked whether you want, weed, mushrooms or opium ... its pretty crazy.
Then there is the restaurants which run Friends, Simpsons all day (To help those who have participated in one of the shakes). Before you ask, I did try a couple of shakes a sip of a mushroom and a sip of an opium though to be fair nothing happened and I didnt feel too crazy about having any more of the opium (see below). However the weed shakes were great!

A couple of weeks before we arrived a lad died when he overdosed on Opium shakes, the guy apparently had 6-7 shakes which is just plain stupid but also you never know how much they put in a single shake.

Vang Vieng sits on the Mekong which goes all the way down to Vientaine and further south to the bottom of Laos. This river is beautiful and also provides much entertainment with kayaking and toobin'. Its possible to even kayak down to Vientaine which I fancied doing but the river is low and you seemed to spend more time in the back of a lorry than on the river.

Anyway check out some of the photos, I have been getting a bit lazy of late with the photo taking and there arent as many good ones as I would hope... sorry.