When we arrived in Vang Vieng, Laos, it was on a fancy new fast train from the Thai border and the town was a lot less party-vibes than when we were last here! How things change in over a decade (or so *cough* – I try not to think about it too much). Which, I guess, is how I ended up doing sunset yoga and then going to a sound bath afterwards.

My lovely yoga teacher back home had set me a practice for while I was away but I’d rarely done it, so I was keen to get into some yoga. The sunset class was across the river, through farmland on a slightly dilapidated, raised platform in a field. Of course, this is a very Instagrammable scene so it was yoga mixed with photo ops.

Perhaps not quite the zen experience of a studio yoga class, but being outside with the hot air balloons and (loud) paramotors was pretty cool.

The sound bath (which is where you lie down and let sounds / music float over you) was very relaxing. The idea is is you let the sound guide you. Often it’s a mix of relaxing yoga / meditation style music with some instruments such as prayer bowls and bells, and in this case a bit of street noise the host had recorded and some live didgeridoo. It sounds quite strange (pardon the pun!) but it’s actually almost meditative.

As you may imagine, my family did not accompany me to these activities. Given it’s not really their style, plus we’d been together basically non-stop for seven months now, it was nice to have an activity that was just for me.