Vang Viang

Wednesday 5th October

Spent the day wandering around Vang Viang – the town is remarkably quiet in the day, but comes to life after sunset. There are plenty of local trips available (both locally and also further away) – these include tubing and visits to waterfalls and local villages etc. Most of the town consists of hotels (mostly cheap), general stores, plenty of bars and restaurants (a lot offering free Wi Fi) many showing English TV (Friends seems to be a favourite).

I went to see 3 temples and at the 3rd I met a 21 yr old monk Na Malamai who was studying English (he has reached Year 3) and we exchanged email addresses – the world is indeed getting smaller.

Tuesday 4th October

Gary left the Truck yesterday to join Lene before they meet up with us briefly in Bangkok in about 3 weeks time. Tony also left first thing this morning to fly to Bangkok and then back to Germany with his trip over. Karen (Will’s partner) joined us at Luang Prabang and will be with the Truck for the next few weeks although we will be leaving the truck (& Will and Karen) at the Vietnam border.

Paggy at Lunch Stop

First thing Lu brought all our passports back from the Vietnamese embassy complete with Visas attached. We then left to hostel in a couple of minibuses and went to the southern bus station to meet up with the truck. The 2 punctured wheels which we got so far had been repaired and Will was in the process of putting them back as spares.


We left about 10:00 and although it was only about 230 km it took all day to reach Vang Vieng where we arrived at about 18:00. the roads just got worse and worse and although they were slow in the mountain pass section they got really slow when we dropped down to the wide river valley as they were badly in need of repair. The scenery was again very impressive (especially in the mountain section) and we passed though a number of hill villages. As we got closer to Vang Vieng it was noticeable that a number of modern houses had been or were being built along the ribbon development which led into the town.

Tomorrow about 13 are going to try tubing on the river while the others will explore the town itself.