Day 1 of the rafting started at 9:30am, when we got on the back of the truck and drove to the river. This took us until 3pm!!!. Nothing to relate except that we picked up an Australian (Pete) who was coming on the trip – but left from Vientiane that morning.. and on his bus he had a guy with an AK47 sitting beside him (banditry is still real over here!)
Once we were actually on the river it was lots of fun, the rapids were mostly 2/2+ and I think one 3 on the first day.
The campsite where we stopped for the night was great though. Very basic (just candles for light) but a beautiful spot. Every so often there’d be a loud crash in the jungle – bamboo falling.
 |
 |
The second day was more fun – up at 8 and on the river pretty quickly. The rapids were mostly 3’s. The only 4 on the river we portaged most of the way – as every time they try to run it they miss the line needed to get through safely, and the raft ends up getting sucked into a big hole and flipped!
On the way we picked up a catfish (I think) from a lady who lived on a tiny island on the river. She caught fish and left them tied under water – so that ppl could come along and buy the still-alive fish. We had some for lunch. Raw perhaps? It was utterly disgusting!
 |
 |
All too soon it was onto a boat (rafts stacked on top) for a 3 hour trip down the flat part of the river (and lake). It was really quite scenic though (water buffalo pic above). The trip was good, the scenery was stunning and the campsite was great, but neither I nor Mhairi reckon it should be advertised as a 2 day rafting trip!! If both days had been like the second then it would definitely have been worth the $90 each.
Back to Veng Vieng, met up with Chris, Emily, Martijn, drank a little too much, and now off on a bus journey to the mysterious plane of jars…
Leave a Reply