Day 46 - 48 Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng is a mountain haven that has developed so much more than its neighbouring communities due to the tourists who visit for the experience of "tubbing" - floating down the Mekong river on the inner tube of a tractor tyre and visiting the many bars, rope swings, and slides that are popping up everyday. Like me you have probably heard the horror stories of the magical yet potentially life threatening tubbing world so as we approached the river that afternoon we had manifested into the perfect tubbing candidates...excited, eager and wearing our sensible/cautious hat...or so we thought. 6 hours later little Laos children were making an absolute killing from our 2 pairs of jandels, 2pairs of sunnies, a watch, a singlet and the 3 cameras we literally saw floating past. Mike and Bec's tubbing experience also resulted in our water lodged camera, 5 stitches and a fractured cheekbone. Let me start at the very beginning... After crossing the river on a pulley system we were greeted at the first mad bar AKA "booze shack" with a friendship bracelet and were not allowed to enter until we had a shot of whisky. We met so many great people, played some crazy games and shared our travel stories until we were off down the river holding hands. The next thing you know locals dressed in spiderman outfits are throwing out ropes and pulling us into their bars. I cant explain how cool it is drifting down the river with a tribe of other mad tourists, with the stunning view of limestone cliffs in the distance. The tubbing experience was  exhilarating and the rest of the day was filled with  dancing and floating along the Mekong river until...my sensible hat fell off and I managed to slip and knock myself out. Of course after my extreme paranoia that something was going to happen it did. The result...5 stitches to the gash on my forehead, a very swollen eye and a possible fractured cheekbone. I soldered on though and with the help of Mike got back in my tube and floated down the river (no more bar stops) until it got dark, made our way back to shore for a tuk tuk into town. In town it was a hospital stop for stitches (really wasn't a pleasant experience) pizza with our tubbing friends and then home to bed with a few painkillers. We wont forget our tubbing experience in a hurry the scar will always remind me of the fun we had, however it was a swift reminder of how easily accidents can happen even when your not jumping off sky high jumping platforms into murky water, or drunkedly swimming across the river without your tube like some idiots. Becs lesson of the day: "don't worry about the other idiots just worry about yourself". Unfortunately i didn't venture out for the rest of our stay the embarrassment of the state of my face put a stop to that, however Mike enjoyed watching the All Blacks beat Ireland in the "Irish Shack". The group of irish devised a game in which every time the all blacks scored they got a free shot (the irish  owner happily obliged) anything for a free drink. By half time everyone was very happy when NZ scored.  Mikes Lesson of the day "the irish will happily cheer for the All Blacks over their own country if they get free drinks out of it" however I think we all already knew that.