Mayan Prophecy Countdown

Thursday 13th December

Well, because of the stuffing around getting visas, I have been in this town too long, so today I decided to head back up north to Vang Vieng. I managed to score a bus ticket for the measly sum of 40,000kip, less than $5AU and by 10am I had stored all my luggage in a spare room, booked out, handed my scooter back in and was ready to roll. Or we thought we were, but just as we got moving we stopped for fuel, why not do this before passengers get aboard? We get moving again but we then stop at a tile factory. The bus driver then had a forklift bring over a pallet of packed, wrapped and strapped tiles, cut it open and started to stuff the spare spaces below decks with packs of big tiles!!!

But, we did eventually get under way and I can say this bus took those twisties quite fast, he used his horn a lot as well 🙂

We stopped for a basic lunch at some remote food shop and arrived in Vang Vieng around 2.30 or so.

I grabbed a tuktuk and booked into the same place I stayed last time, the Mesah View Hostel [ N18 55.330 E102 26.760 ]but with a better view from the window. Drinking beer on the sunset decks of some of the local bars is fun, and this was the reason I was here, for rest and relaxation, it is way better than that crap town of Vientiane.

Tomorrow I have booked in for a kayak ride so it was an early night for me 🙂

——————————————–

I went down to the Elephant Crossing [ N18 55.379 E102 26.748 ] for breakfast, they know how to do eggs here and they make a great cuppa tea 🙂 I will probably become a regular here as it is very close to where I am staying. After brekky I bought a small dry bag for my phone and a towel etc before being picked up in a packed van, full of a young tour group, all here to do the kayaks 🙂 They took us about 9km upriver where we unloaded and proceeded to be given instructions by our guide.

Then we were off, as I had never done it before I was matched up with the 2nd guide, so that was all good. The first thing that happened was we got wet, on purpose!!!

But after that it was all plain paddling downriver. There was not a great deal of water around, it is the dry season, but enough to create a flow, and there were some rapids, it was fun to start with 🙂

The main guide leader was with another inexperienced paddler, but he kept splashing all the girls and then decided to fall in and have some fun, hopping from kayak to kayak. 🙂

After the first hour my legs were killing me though, they were not used to this extended position for this length of time, so I was in a bit of pain. But the scenery was nice and I tried different positions to make myself more comfortable, including side saddle 🙂

We came to some sections where they used to have bars, but they had all been closed down due to the constant deaths. What I mean about this is that this town of Vang Vieng is a mecca for the young, they come here in droves, they get really involved in all the drugs and alcohol that is available and then mix that with water sports. 20 people died in 2011 from a mixture of booze, drugs and water sports, read more here or just put in a search engine the term – vang Vieng tubing bars shutdown and that will pop up a lot of results.

We stopped for a break, which I was really thankful for to give my burning legs a stretch, it was at a beach where they did climbing training. The real reason for stopping though was to empty the water out of the kayak hulls, they had so many holes in them, they take on a fair bit of water.

This place here was very close to the only cache in Laos I had not managed to find. It is called Above The Rice Fields
If you read the description from the link, you will see that I was going to need a lot of skill to collect this one, today was not going to be the day though as I have never rock climbed in my life. As it turned out we were not far from the town and only 45 minutes later after passing under some of the small bamboo bridges we had finished our trip 🙂 By then I was in all sorts of pain, even my shoulders which are more used to holding onto a motorbike than using a paddle for 2 hours!!!

This next one shows the bar deck where I am usually having my breakfast and sundowners at the Elephant Crossing, it is the one with a white wall.

I was real glad to be back, and I was hungry too, so after a shower I grabbed a nice feed from next door to my hostel, very tasty and filling 🙂

From here I could watch the street life, which as usual includes cows!!

After a bit of a nanny nap I was woken by a loud whooshing noise, as it turns out it was a hot air balloon being launched from across the road in the school yard, they were heading off for a sunset tour.

The sunset was spectacular as usual, but you could never get bored with it 🙂

Check out the cute moth on the wall 🙂

I went down to the Aussie bar for some tucker and ended up having a good time. It started out bad though as there was a group of young chaps drinking on one of the tables. I was sitting by myself when I noticed this red dot on the waitresses shirt just next to me, I turned around and one of them was shining a small laser, which really pissed me off!! So I went over and gave them a gobfull, about how they could blind someone rah rah rah. In the end they apologised and invited me over for drinks, so I did 🙂 We had a great old night and I staggered home late. The worst part of the night was that I seemed to have lost my camera on the way back, but I never found this out until the next day though. During the afternoon, I had copied all the kayaking photos across so I could upload them, just in case some of the other kayakers wanted a copy, so I did not lose too many photos, it is still a bugger though 😦

Cheers from Vang Vieng
TravellingStrom