Relaxing and Wandering in Vang Vieng

Today has been a rather lazy and uneventful day. First we had our first lie-in in months and stayed in bed until 10.30am. It was bliss. We got up and ready and then sat in our guesthouse café all morning with our journals and computer and got up to date with all our writing. We drank coffee and ate lovely food and just enjoyed the slowness of the day. The views from our guesthouse are stunning. It is right next to the river so we can see the water, the rickety bridges and the small long tail boats moored up. There are mountains in every direction and small wooden buildings nestled between them. It is beautiful. We stayed drinking coffee for ages.

After we went in search of a pair of sunglasses for Liam. This is his fourth pair. After looking in every shop at the very dusty and scratched pairs on offer we came back to the first shop and he was humming and haring over one pair of dusty sunnies. Chelsea asked how much and the man said 20000 kip, (less than £2) so Chelsea just bought them and said if he changed his mind to just buy another pair. It was hot and all the shops sold the exact same merchandise.

After the extremely busy morning of coffee drinking and shopping in the sunshine we were ready for a pit stop. We went in a café on the river and decided to share a beer. Lots of the cafes here have raised booths with low tables where you sit around on cushions. It was raised above there river so offered beautiful views again. We took our books and talked and read all afternoon, drinking beer and admiring the mountains. By the end of the day we were so chilled out we were laid down and though we better have a little walk before we fell asleep.

Vang Vieng is a very small river town. It has a main road and an adjacent road on the river. Off this are several small bridges crossing the river which lead to a little island. We decided to go on a little walk across the river. The bridges are little wooden things than sway heavily when you walk across them. The island is extremely small and you can walk from one side to the other in less than a minute.

There are some nice places to stay on there and little footpaths so you can explore. There were chickens walking around and it is very green, long grass and trees. The view over the other side of the river is beautiful and you can see down the river towards the mountains. It is the final stop point for tubing.

After out little explore we got ready, cooled off in our room and went out for some tea. We walked around the whole town and decided on a place on the river. It took a long time for our food to come but the atmosphere was nice and the views again were lovely. To finish off our lazy day we watched some films and went to bed. A perfect lazy day for a beautiful lazy place.

Tomorrow we have decided to go tubing. This is what most westerners come to Vang Vieng for and is normally a massive drunken affair on the river where loads of people drown or get injured however as it is very low season Vang Vieng is not the party destination we thought. It is very relaxed and quiet and we think it might be nice to float down the river on a giant tractor inner tube admiring the mountains and stopping off for drinks on the way.