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I had a double seat to myself on the bus, and is it was the seat over the wheel I sat near the aisle. We'd not been driving long when a soldier got on the bus. At first I thought it was an official check, but he just clambered into the seat next to me and took his shoes off. He was carrying a really old and battered rifle, which he cradled in his arms as he went to sleep. He started off with gun well protected, but as he drifted off he made less and less contact with it, until it would have been very simple to, erm, borrow it.

Vang Vieng and region

Amongst the travelers on the bus was an Australian girl, Sam, who insisted that she recognised me from Chiang Mai, though I didn't recognise her. But she became one of the people I would bump into several more times.

The roads to Vang Vieng are pretty awful, so although it is not a great distance it still takes most of the day. Once we arrived, I quickly checked into a guest house, somehow picking one with the hardest bed in Asia. Even in the 5 minutes it took to do this it was noticeable that people were openly smoking dope, making no attempt to hide it.

I met up again with Ali's friends Sian, Nicky and Andrew, plus some stoned guy who had just sat down at their table. He kept saying things like "My doctor told me not to drink too much beer", meaning the guy who had sold him some opium.

Skinny dipping or having a wash?

The guest house over the road from where the bus had dropped us off was hosting a wedding party, so we decided to go and have a quick look before going to bed. We stood outside the courtyard and watched the dancing, but very soon we were invited in.

Sunset in Vang Vieng

Sunset in Vang Vieng

The guest house was still full of foreigners, who I guess had been invited by default, so we weren't the only ones there. This was my first experience of Laos hospitality, and very hospitable it was. We'd only intended to have a short look, but we stayed until we could hardly stand up and eventually staggered home in the early hours.

A very bad head meant that the next morning was not very energetic, but then Vang Vieng is more conducive to relaxing than to actually doing stuff. In the afternoon we went tubing, which I had assumed would be similar to what I'd done in Malaysia. In fact the only similarities were that we used an inner tube and we were floating on water.

A tuk tuk drove us a mile or so upstream and dropped us off near the river. We sat in the tubes, and, nothing. The river was incredibly slow moving, so if we wanted to get back before night fall we would have to paddle to some extent. As a form of thrill seeking it was completely lacking, but as a way to chill out in the late afternoon it was pretty cool.

Ali and Jennifer inside a cave

I hadn't made any arrangements to meet up with Ali and Marie, but Vang Vieng was so small that when they arrived it wasn't difficult to bump into them.

With a full compliment of people we decided to visit some caves. As well as all the people mentioned already, Sian and co had bumped into Welsh Jon, who they'd met originally when they'd traveled way up north.

We decided to walk to the nearest cave, Grolte Chang, which took us half an hour or so. Outside was a rock pool, where a bunch of Laos were bathing, the boys stripped down to their underwear, the girls and women more circumspect. After we'd explored the cave we joined them for a short while.

Sian, Jon, Andrew, Nicky, Marie, Jennifer and Ali

We paused for a drink (right), and then Jon took us on a detour which he cunningly described as a short cut, along the west bank of the river, cutting across private land, streams and very dubious paths, until we reached Huey Gue, which was just across the river from Vang Vieng.

Off to some caves

After dinner we had a few Lao Lao cocktails (Lao Lao and lemonade, more or less) and decided to go to a karaoke bar. This was situated well out of the way of tourists near the air strip. Naturally it was all in Laos (or possibly Thai), so there was no chance of us joining in even if we had wanted to.

This closed around midnight, so Jon and I stopped off at a stall with seats outside that was still open. I walked up and asked for two beers to which the woman replied, "want opium?". We settled for the beers.

Although Vang Vieng is a very good place to do virtually nothing, I felt it was time to do some exercise, so for my last full day there I hired a bike and set off down the main road in search of another cave, just beyond Phone Xay. This was quite a long ride, given the heat, but not really that long. Still, by the time I arrived I was sweaty and thirsty. It had taken me several false turns to find the cave, and even now I'm not sure it was the one I was looking for. My arrival co-incided with that of some Laos tourists who were very friendly and courteous, which I was grateful for, because at least one of them was armed.

I cycled back to Vang Vieng for a late lunch, and then found a spot by the river where I could chill out, read and listen to my walkman.

The Vang Vieng Liberation Front

Ali and I had talked about trying some opium while we were here (to fail to do so would be like going to Scotland and not sampling the whisky), but we'd failed to get our arses in gear and actually do it. So that evening, before meeting Jon for dinner, when someone asked if I wanted opium, I said yes. I was taken to an upstairs room, minus my sandles of course, and told to lie down on a mattress on the floor. The opium paste was mashed up and a pipe was filled, and then it was passed to me and held over a flame while I inhaled. Not being a smoker I didn't get the full benefit, but after 3 pipes felt suitably mellow. This cost me a grand total of 15000 kip, which is less than 5 Swiss francs.

I met up with Jon, and later with Ali and Marie, who had had the same idea as me, only at a different opium den. We ended up at the same roadside stall as the previous night for a final drink, and again were offered opium. This time Ali and I went for it. The procedure was similar, except this time the guy making the pipes gave me instructions on how to smoke it to get more from it. We stopped for one more beer outside as a thunderstorm broke, and the Laos rainy season effectively started early.

My final morning in Vang Vieng was overcast and grey. It seemed like a good time to go.

I'd heard before I got to Laos that the bus service didn't particularly stick to a timetable - if a bus was full it left, if it wasn't it didn't leave until it was or the driver got tired of waiting. The first time I saw this in action was the day I left Vang Vieng.

I arrived at the bus stop nearly an hour before it was due to leave, and already the bus was full, mostly with locals. I ended up being the third person on a seat made for two, with one cheek hanging off the edge. Before long, the bus was completely full with many people standing. We left about half an hour ahead of schedule.

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Last modified on 22nd December 2007 3:31 PM EST

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