The road to Vang Vieng

The minibus was late this morning and stopped a few times so we arrived in Vang Vieng at about 2.30pm.  Most of the way was by windy mountain roads and the scenery was stunning.  

We knew it was going to be busy because of Chinese New Year so booked a guesthouse in advance online.  We arrive and there is no one there but a phone number taped to the door.  Andy waits with the packs while Fred goes to find a phone.  She gets through, is told by the owner that he has no bookings and doesn't in fact deal with Agoda who we booked through.  He says he's full and that we need to contact Agoda to get our money back.  He also refuses to come to the guest house to sort it out saying he'll be back about 5pm.  So we begin our hotel search.  It soon becomes apparent we aren't the only ones as there are lots of people wandering around with packs on.   We speak to a few and it seems there are quite a lot of unhonoured bookings in this town!  It takes us over two hours walking with packs on in the heat but we eventually find a place about 15 mins walk outside of town.  There is a group of Dutch tourists also checking in, their original hotel had overbooked too.

We go into town in the evening and its mobbed ... perhaps we should have given this place a miss while travelling south.