Dipping our toes in the water...

Nestled amongst utterly breath taking mist topped mountains is the tiny town of Vang Vieng. It's a backpacker favourite with American TV shows, cheap beer Laos, whiskey buckets for less than a pound and most famously tubing. 3 days into the 6 day trip here and we still hadn't seen the river but the chaos associated with it is everywhere - cuts, bruises and bandages aplenty. The next afternoon we signed our lives away (literally! You have to sign a waiver), grabbed our tubes and set off. The combination of free-flowing alcohol, fast flowing and very dirty river rapids and an incredible backdrop is somewhat surreal, immensely fun but a perfect example of how tourism can alter a town not necessarily for the better. Further afield things got much more interesting, a little moped ride through foot deep puddles and slip slidey mud revealed the real Vang Vieng - tiny farming villages, picturesque lagoons and even glimpses of waterfalls on the distant mountains.



Yesterday, with the help of three kind Israeli men, we spent the day exploring these remote areas seeing village children washing and playing in the stream, having a beer surrounded by kittens, piglets and chicks and later having a bite to eat in the middle of a thunderstorm.



A few days to explore doesn't seem enough but Bangkok is calling so for now the rest of Laos will have to wait!