Vang Vieng- A cycling we will go.. 2nd Feb 2010

Unfortunately, hard as we tried to avoid it, we still managed to find a guesthouse where you could hear the rubbish trance music coming from the Bucket Bar on the island down the road but Leon and I were determined to carry out our day's plan, despite the lack of sleep. We found some semi-decent bicycles in the centre of town (they had two wheels and the brakes worked, which was good enough!) and set off on our explorations. The thing is, we seem to make a habit of sightseeing during the hottest part of the day, so even 3 minutes into our journey Leon was sweating buckets and I definitely had more than just a glow going on! Nonetheless, there were too many caves in Vang Vieng calling out for us to explore them so off we went, across the river to the other side, where all the caves were located. This involved cycling through some villages where the roads consisted of a lot of red earth and stones, so you can imagine how sore our bums were feeling by the time we made it to the first cave. We gingerly cycled through a massive field to Cave number one (I was still paranoid about cycling over a hidden unexploded ordnance), where we were greeted by a bored looking girl and two huge dogs in a little hut with a sign overhead demanding that we paid a fee. It seemed like everyone was out to make a buck in Laos, but dutifully we paid the fee (it wasn't a great deal of money anyway) and off we went. We were gone for about 20 seconds before we were stopped by a Laotian man who asked us if we had a torch with us. Ah, no we didn't. So much for being prepared for all eventualities. However this was the answer the man was looking for, as he produced two very old looking torches from his backpack and again for a bit of money, we could now actually see what we were doing in the caves!!! It was a bit spooky as we were the only people at the first cave, which was incredibly dark (of course) and actually had a few tunnels in it which you could carry on crawling through to do a bit more exploration. I, however, was too much of a chicken to go much further than 5 metres so instead Leon and I sat outside and took in the quietness and the fresh air. We decided to go to the second cave which was 5 minutes down the road and again, we were the only people there! It seemed like everyone else in Vang Vieng was tubing... Cave number two was larger, more impressive but again, being the only people there, and without a guide, we decided to cycle back and have some lunch. We had it to a peaceful restaurant on the river side with great views and OK food and this was where I encountered my first HUGE lizard in Asia. It was walking past me, brushed my foot and I literally stood up, did a little dance and screamed like a little girl, much to the amusement of Leon and the 20 other people there who didn't seem too fussed about the lizard at all. It was about 50 cm long so I'm not too embarrassed about my reaction! After a leisurely lunch, we decided to head back for a rest and wait until the weather was a little more cycling-friendly. Around 5 pm we headed back out towards the caves and watched the sun go down over the paddy fields with the hills in the background, which was very beautiful indeed. Although there were more caves to be seen, fatigue had taken over us that day but we were happy that we made it to two of them and also managed to get a bit of exercise on those bikes. With the sensible sightseeing done, we were ready to take on the tubing that was planned for day 3 in Vang Vieng!