Next stop: tubing!

With my reluctant Californian and German travel buddies along, we grabbed a bus to a mountain ensconced town, Vang Vieng, to participate in what I can only describe as non-mariner's Laos style.

What you need: an inflatable tube, patience for loud, drunk British gap year students, a bathing suit and enough money to buy the ubiquitous whisky buckets (the black and cokes of South East Asia. They contain a flask of Thai whisky, two cokes and two red bulls. Lethal).

First we had to survive the bus ride from Luang Prabang. Roller coasters last maybe 10 minutes? Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng? Six hours. I'm just glad I did not eat before boarding and luckily the green and cloud enveloped countryside of Laos more than makes up for the nausea I felt.

In Vang Vieng we arrived at a bus stop three kilometres outside the town's centre. We turned down the inevitable 'offers' of a tuktuk ride and hiked into town. Along the way we met an Australian guy who suggested his hostel as a resting place for the night, "I mean no pressure guys. Take it easy!"

We were suckered in. A restless night in the mustiest room I have ever been in (yes it made mould in Bermuda look like air freshener), and barely able to breathe we found a much cleaner and even cheaper hostel almost next door run by a Laotian family. I always prefer to support the local community in any case.

To get rid of the mould, what we needed was some good strong whisky buckets, a tube, and a muddy Mekong river. Luckily, this was all close at hand.

Vang Vieng is a strange little place that is surrounded by some of the most stunning views and landscape I have ever seen. And yet, it is probably better known for the drunk, yes sadly mostly British gap year students, that come for nothing more than the tubing.

To help aid their hangovers or pre-tubing drink-fests, bars featuring the TV shows 'Friends' or 'Family Guy' have sprung up around many of the local homes that still try not to be suffocated by the stench of body shots and ale (all sounds appealing doesn't it?)

So of course we had to join the crowd the first day and picked up our tubes at the local rental place that also gave us a lift to the first river bar. Reluctant at first to join in, after our first bucket we were more than happy to decorate our arms with our names and anything else the supplied markers could create.

That done, with some help I pulled my Californian travel buddy down to the second bar, then the third (with the required mud pit) and finally the fourth (with its treacherous tiled-slide made with a launching pad at 180 degrees). As the sun started to set we decided to get ourselves back home before darkness would completely obscure the landing site: read wherever the local kids could grab us and bring us into land (for a fee).

Gently floating back and watching the sun descend behind the towering mountains was the perfect way to end our visit to gap year.

The next day we were surprisingly better for wear (more than I can say for some stumbling around the town) so we headed for the nearby caves. We had no idea where we were going, but decided to head across the one bamboo bridge (as directed in the guidebook) and then figure it out.

We had also been told not to listen to the children near the caves because we wouldn't have to pay to get in until we were immediately upon the caves.

We found one road that looked as good as any and started our journey only to quickly be set upon by, what looked to be, a 10-year-old boy. You must by tickets! Yeah right. We kept walking. He kept following. I was not going to give in and he caved before we did (or we found a cave). After multiple dead-ends and mud up to our ankles we had to admit defeat and head back to the main road.

Only this time the kid was prepared. Standing at the crossroads he nonchalantly tapped a hunting knife against his palm. "Did you find the cave?" Ummmm No.....ahhhh I wasn't going to challenge anyone with a knife on a road with only me and the Californian girl. We quickly made our way back to the main road and back to Vang Vieng.

So much for caving, but we didn't mind an afternoon to relax and even indulge in, hold you breath, 'Friends'! The next day it was off to Vientiane, the capital of Laos, as we made our way south through this landlocked country to Cambodia.

While it was cheap in Vang Vieng ($3 for our double room) in Vientiane we were lucky to pay less than $12 for a box. We decided one night here was enough (we were right) and booked an overnight bus the following night for 4,000 Islands – an area that borders Cambodia and boasts sightings of the endangered Irrawaddy dolphin.

Before boarding our night bus we decided not to waste the day and thought we could find the local swimming pool. Um...with dead frogs floating around and water we could barely see through we gave this a miss. Instead we wandered through the market up to what resembles the L'Arc de Triomphe. Not quite as impressive, it gave us something to do in this town before the bus left at 7 p.m.

For a capital city, Vientiane, was a let down. So was the electricity as we left all the lights went out!

We cuddled up in our double-bed, overnight bus (glad I knew who was sleeping next to me) and were ready for dolphins.

Dazed and confused we stumbled off the bus to some man telling us we had to go with him. How he knew is anyone's guess. But we followed him and luckily found the van which would transport us to the ferry which would eventually deliver us to one of the two inhabitable Islands (Don Khon) in the 4,000 Island chain.

This area is under water during the rainy season and only treetops reveal the submerged land. Perhaps this is why electricity only recently arrived on the islands.

Still walking at night is a dangerous affair as negotiating mud puddles in the dark is not easy (there are no street lights).

Finding a place to stay was also not easy. After a punt ride to the Island of Don Khon we spent an hour of wandering, totally exhausted, looking for anywhere to sleep. We found a family run place with our trusty dog – Me (that's his name not actually me)!

I was ready to eat my fingers so we dumped our bags and headed to meet a Hawaiian couple that we had befriended on the van ride. Typical Laos style, though, lunch did not arrive for three hours!

Deciding the day would not be dedicated to eating and ferry rides, me and the Californian girl went walking along the dirt paths to the waterfalls/rapids. This Island is amazing. We had no idea what the loud thunderous noise was until we turned the corner and there before us was thousands of tonnes of water throwing itself over rocks. Mesmerising (or maybe it was the lack of sleep and food? Who knows).

Heading back to the main spread of restaurants and hostels we decided to start dinner early in case it took another three hours and crashed. Thank goodness.

Laos or Thailand, I don't really know which country was responsible for the loud rock music that came pumping from the next door neighbours at 5 a.m., but I didn't care. I was infuriated. Unfortunately no one else seemed to care and this rock session seemed nothing but normal for the town. By 6.30 a.m. it was over and I managed to get a bit more sleep.

We decided to rent bikes and head for the second island (Don Det) and hopefully to the beach where we could arrange the dolphin viewing. Almost as soon as we had our bikes and arrived at the meeting spot (with the Hawaiian couple) the clouds decided to try and drown us. Undeterred and with plastic bags covering everything we could, we set-out in any case. Over a rickety bridge, along a out-of-use rail bridge, we eventually made it to the second island. It was beautiful if not difficult riding through mud puddles and along rice paddies, but we made it to a spot for some lunch.

It was 3 p.m. at this point and we decided to book-it (well as fast as the mud puddles would allow us) back to our island to try and see the dolphins.

Unfortunately the Hawaiian couple lost a chain on one of their bikes. Luckily this meant they met a fisherman who was happy to take us in his tiny canoe-like boat, to see the dolphins.

As he transferred a rickety motor from one canoe to ours and praying this was a wise choice (we were just down river from those deafening rapids) we piled into the cask....canoe. He dropped us on the shores of Cambodia where for $1 we could sit and watch the dorsal fins break the water.

The Hawaiian girl was a marine biologist and she tried to take notes for her report from home (I tried to help, but when I came-up with 15 and her four I gave up).

Finally dragging her away from the dolphins, all four of us piled back into the rickety boat to return to Laos. After another dark dinner and packing our bags, we crashed into bed for our early rise to infiltrate Cambodia (sans dolphins).

Next stop: Bribing our way into Cambodia