Vang Vieng

After a long ride that included passing the border in crazy rain, and then later switching from a comfy bus to a back of a pickup truck we reached Vientiane, a small touristic capital city. Spending a day there was nice, we ate pretty good food, not so cheap though, we were hit by crazy rain again during a walk that started in a sunny weather, and then the next day continued to drive to Vang Vieng where we were supposed to meet Inbal the next day. Vang Vieng is a pretty little town, located next to a beautiful river, surrounded by steep mountains, the scenery is breathtaking in almost any direction you look. The ground's color is reddish and the plantation is dark green, and in one of our trips here, we found the ultimate neighbor's grass - no greener grass can possibly exist. The town consists of layback hostels, that play reruns of southpark, friends, how I met your mother, and jackass. The food is tasty and rather cheap, the attractions include mountain climbing, massages, kayaking, parties at nights that continue to after parties either on an island or next to a small lagoon, and the main attraction - tubing. We met up with Inbal and the following day was the tubing day. Basically, you take a tube, and stream down the river, there are bars on the sides of the river, and locals that throw a rope to you with amazing precision to pull you out of the water to their bar. Each bar had his own "thing" - in one I played soccer - the locals versus the tourists, surprisingly the tourists team was built of one british dude stuck being goaly, and the rest were Israelies... In another place you had to reach a bucket hung on a rope over the river, using your hands - monkey style. Everyone makes it to the bucket, no one makes it back and so they fall Ito the river and later again pulled out. Another bar had a hand swing that shot you into the river. There were others but we didn't do them all, and when the bars ended we just kept going until we were eventually supposed to reach all the way back to town. Somewhere in the middle the weather became a little cold and Amit and Ziv (an Israeli guy that joined us during the Vang Vieng days) managed to fall off their tube and almost lose it, and at one point Amit was scared to die for an unclear reason ( his legs touched the bottom the whole time..) but in the end we reached town safely. Tubing is awesome! People spread the word about this attraction for a good reason. After tubing you are worn out and tired, so lying on mattresses eating hamburgers and watching how I met your mother is the perfect way to refresh before you go out to yet another night of parties. Details about parties are usually boring, but In this case two details are rather unique - in one after party we were taken to muddy soil by the lagoon and danced around a fire like hell is rising on earth, and in a second party I did a fire show with a long stick that had fire in both ends! and I didn't really burn myself at all!  We had another day in Vang Vieng before continuing to Luang Parabang, so we decided to spend it by the blue lagoon, which also has a very amazing cave by it, and inside the cave sits a layback (literally) statue of budha. After 3 days here I can understand how people can lose themselves in such places, the sensation of freedom is all around and the cycle of the day can easily become addictive. Lucky for us, plan manager and administration specialist Inbal is keeping us on schedule, and in the time that these words are being written, we are after almost 9 hours of driving in a VIP bus that has no air conditioner,an overheating engine, and a mixture of people, bags, extra plastic chairs for the truly unlucky, and lots of smells - some unpleasant, some are somewhat life-threatening. Lucky for us - we got the back seat for being the only white people on the bus. Unlucky for us, the engine is exactly underneath us so by putting our feet down we will eventually fry them.