Sharon WeeMy boyfriend and I decided to celebrate our birthdays overseas! We wanted to go to a place that we both haven’t been to before. He’s already been to Europe and I can barely afford going there, so instead, we went to South East Asia.
Check out our typical SE Asia get up.
We decided to go to Vang Vieng, a small tourist area in Laos. We got to Vang Vieng by bus from the airport in Vientiane, that cost us slightly more than USD 10.
Streets of Vientiane, which is super busy in the morning.
The airport in Vientiane
Here are some of the main events that took place on our trip.
1. Tubing
If you were to research on Laos, you’d probably be told to try out tubing in Vang Vieng. It’s pretty much sitting in a large float and floating along a 4-5km route down Nam Song River. We decided to share a float, but didn’t expect to get dragged across large rocks during low tide!
At the start of the first km itself, there were three bars for us to float to, get off and get drunk. Most would get off at the final bar to take a tuk tuk back to the village. However, my boyfriend and I decided to skip the alcohol and be more adventurous. We kept floating even till we were the only ones left on the lake. We continued floating all the way till we ended up back at the village we came from! Many people found it amusing because people do not usually float all the way back.
The river in this picture is part of where we floated back to.
2. Hot Air Ballooning
It costs USD 70 per person which is by far the cheapest in the world. We had to wake up really early in the morning so that we could catch the sunrise and it was simply fantastic. It was very cool in the morning and because Vang Vieng isn’t exactly a big village, we started from one end and floated across to the other end. Doing this, we realised that Vang Vieng is surrounded by majestic mountains. We were literally in the clouds! It was so beautiful and amazing.
Our trusty professionals look really bored.
Just look at how beautiful it is. It really was a splendid experience!
3. Caves and Waterfalls
We rented a scooter for USD 7 so that we could scoot around. We took a long ride to Blue Lagoon (which looks more green than blue) and visited the caves as well. Not really my kind of thing but I thought, might as well!
It really does look green!
4. Relax, eat and enjoy watching Friends.
Yes, our favourite tv show, Friends, is shown everywhere. You can walk into any shop-house and it would be playing on TV. We spent most evenings just chilling and watching TV to unwind. We made friends with two other travellers from the UK, Darren and Danielle and they were simply a joy to hang out with. We got a bit lost here and there, and even got caught in the rain. This just made the night more amazing!
5. Spend a night in a comfy resort to pamper yourself.
Accommodation here is actually very cheap. They have rows and rows of guesthouses and rooms. It can get as cheap as USD 4! However, since it was our birthdays, we splurged on a nice resort called Ban Sabai at about USD 200 and I was impressed. I’ll let the pictures do the talking.
Can you imagine how peaceful it was?
And that marks the end of our birthday trip to Laos!
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Contributed by Sharon Nadine.
