The timing worked out perfectly, my birthday was around the corner and the A-Team was running from Vietnam for a crime they didn’t commit and entering into Laos. Vang Vieng seemed like the most logical answer to meet up with our new friends from London and celebrate my birthday. What more could we ask for? A small town with a chill atmosphere, parties, and tubing!

The Otherside Bungalows

We arrived to the small town on a craptastic “VIP” bus from Vientiane, however our ride really sounded like nothing compared to Adam and Anna’s story of their 20 hour bus ride from Hanoi involving puking girl who was sleeping on Adam’s lap with the chickens. We found ourselves some well built bungalows located on the other side of the river from town. They were called “The Otherside Bungalows” with perfect distance away from the nightly sound of thumping top 40 music and hooting and hollering from the “I had five too many buckets” group. You could even say we were staying in the countryside as every day around the same time a herd of cows would come and eat the grass.

The bridges of Vang Vieng – super safe to cross on when your stumbling on your feet!

Vang Vieng is a interesting town. It compromises of about 3 main streets which all are filled with restaurants, internet cafes, hotels, and shops filled with junk from China or tubing souvenir shirts. There really isn’t much variety in anything. Most restaurants have the exact same menu as another one and all shops sell the exact same garbage. Any bridge is built out of a mishap of wood and bamboo, just looking at them is scary enough let alone walking over them in various states. But for some reason you are able to spend many days here. Its probably the fact that everyone is in a constant flux of hangover and never want to bother moving onwards in their travels as the thought of getting into one of the horrible buses just makes them want to vomit.

Buckets- The drinking method of choice

At night an island lights up that is filled with a variety of outdoor bars. Each one seems to have its own sort of theme set by music selection. There are also a few bars located on the streets and every single one of them has bucket specials. From rolling the dice to get free ones, 2 for 1 and half off specials, or even just arrive between 9-10 and get a free bucket. As excessive as it is, it really is the most logical way to drink in Vang Vieng. But, be prepared! Your mornings become write offs and before you know it days have passed where you have done nothing but sleep all day, eat, then drink the night away again! Good times!

Hmm… which sandwich/pancake cart should we choose?
flickr photo credit: mariachilly

We can’t forget about the gauntlet of sandwich and pancake carts (again all with the exact same menu) that are impossible to avoid on your stumble back to your room. Its 3am and some easy to access food sounds like the best idea in the world! With them all set up right next to each other there is no need to wait in a big line. Just order, watch them make, and enjoy! Sandwiches like Bacon, Chicken, Cheese on a french baguette or roti pancakes like Peanut Butter Banana Chocolate. Mmmm….

One of many pool games that I constantly sucked at

So yah, our days spent here in Vang Vieng with the A-Team were fantastic. Almost too much drinking, many many games of Queen of Spades, constant pool championships, and just some plain old relaxing. We were having the time of our lives and hadn’t even gotten onto the infamous river yet! Days we made plans to hit it up we always seemed to find an excuse… the sky was too grey or our hang overs were just too much. Also, we thought we should hold off on the tubing until my actual birthday in a few days.

Probably telling Scott he is doing it wrong

We did however manage to get on the river one day with some kayaks. The sun decided to come out in its full glory, we didn’t win that many buckets by rolling the dice the night before, and we figured it be a great way to size up the bars on the river for tubing. It was my first time ever on a kayak. Scott took the back and I took the front. I felt Scott didn’t steer good enough as we often found ourselves getting stuck, almost hitting tubers, and even totally bailed and flipped right over in some strong currents. Lucky we had our camera in a dry sac (that worked this time!) I then decided to take more control on the steering and found we avoided things perfectly. Hmmm… Next time I think I will try taking a kayak myself and figure out where the problem was. Me, Scott or most likely both of us with some really bad teamwork.

Can’t wait to go tubing now!!

It was super nice though on the river and made us really excited to get on some tubes for my birthday! Stay tuned for that story!

We upgraded our room to relax in Vientiane

We could almost spend our whole trip in Thailand, especially in a laid back town like Chiang Pai. But there’s more of Asia to see, so we took a plane to the border town of Udon Thani to cross into Laos and get into Vientiane. Unfortunately while I was grabbing money for our tuk-tuk in Udon Thani I slipped on a curb and rolled my ankle. I didn’t break it or anything but couldn’t walk very well.

When we were in Sweden Dee did a similar thing to her ankle, and we kept walking on through Latvia and Russia. Her foot ended up hurting her quite a bit and for a long time, so I wanted to make sure to stay off my foot and let it heal. So for our week in Vientiane we really didn’t end up doing too much. We went to the Vietnam Embassy to get our visa’s, but the rest of the time was spent watching movies on our laptop.

We were staying at the Beau Rivage Boutique Hotel which was super nice, and they had a great restaurant attached to it called the Spirit House. The food was amazing and had a French influence to it, which was nice after spending so much time in Thailand. It was nice to have things like caesar salads with pumpkin soup, because the Thai’s really don’t do salads very well. But one of their best items was the blue cheese arancini balls. They’re fried rice balls coated with bread crumbs and spices, coming from Italy. If you see them on a menu do yourself a favor and order them! Or better yet, if your in Vientiane, do yourself a favor and treat yourself at the Spirit House restaurant. (located on the river)

After 4-5 my foot stared feeling better. Which was good, because we were planning on meeting up with our friends Anna and Adam. We had met them on Koh Phayam and for New Years in Koh Phangan, and had managed to work out to meet up in Viang Vang to party for Dee’s birthday.

Ready for an adventure!

After realizing 2.5 weeks just passed us by as we did practically nothing in Pai we started to feel we should get out there, somewhere, and see/do something! After some humming and hawing we decided to drive ourselves to Soppong, spend a day, and then drive back. Soppong is a very small town located between Pai and Mae Hong Son. It offers very little in tourist services except for a few guest houses. But, it offered a not to far away location for us to adventure to on the back of some scooters.

Our mode of transportation

From what we could tell, the drive involved heading up over a mountain and then back down again with a guarantee of some steep roads and tight turns. Not wanting to repeat what happened in Phayam, we decided we should be smart with our scooter rental for the trip. First of all, helmets of course! Second, we each ride our own scooter and third, spend the extra money and rent the more expensive scooters. Something that is guaranteed to not break down and have enough oomf in the motor to get up that mountain! In Pai, the best you can get will only cost you a mere 150 baht per day.

Scenic mountain views

With a dag bay packed and the rest of our stuff stored safely with Peter and Anne back at Darling View Point Bungalows we were ready to hit the road! The ride through Thailand’s mountain country side was quite spectacular. Being the dry season the terrain was often quite dry, so dry infact control burns were in effect just a few metres away from the highway to help prevent forest fires. We could hear the roaring sound of the fires and then feel the extreme heat blast our faces as we whizzed right by. The fires were so close to the road we felt it wasn’t safe to stop and take a picture. But, mixed amongst all the dry terrain and burned up ground was bountiful green plantations of rice filling valleys for as far as we could see.

One of many turns of the drive

The ride is definitely not a newbies drive. I would not recommend it if it’s the first time you’ve ever been on a scooter. Tight turns at the bottom of a steep hill, or tight turns that suddenly lead you straight up a steep incline. The first time I ever driven a scooter was only a few weeks earlier on Scott’s birthday but that day sure helped me feel confident enough to do this ride.

Found the best road in Thailand!

A couple hours later we arrived to Soppong. We decided to stay at The Cave Lodge which is located a bit outside the town, but the road that leads you to it was one of the best and most interestings drives we’ve experiences in all of Thailand. It winds you through many hill tribes of smiling faces as you pass by. Also, a large chunk goes through forest only on a beautiful freshly paven road. Something you barely ever find in Thailand! The need for speed comes on strong here and Scott and I soon found ourselves zipping along faster then usual and taking corners like a pro.

Our serene front porch at The Cave Lodge

The Cave Lodge is a great guesthouse in Soppong, located on the cliff side of a river bank with extremely easy access to many caves, hill tribes, and trekking. We didn’t make use of any of the treks they offered as we felt we got our fill of cave experience for this trip in Khao Sok! Instead, for the day we spent our time enjoying the peaceful serenity of the area, took another ride on the awesome road through the forest, met some nice people, and enjoyed the fresh bread from The Cave Lodge’s bread oven. They even made us a home made stew for dinner!

Looking back at the road we just drove up from the summit of the mountain between Pai and Soppong

Now driving like pros, the ride back to Pai went far faster then the ride to Soppong. We both feel quite confident on the back of a scooter. (Well, by ourselves that is!)