After a few days in Luang Prabang, myself and my 3 travel buddies decided to follow the crowd to Vang Vieng. This is a famous spot among backpackers as the place to go tubing in Laos. This entails getting in a tractor tire inner tube and floating down a river while drinking. But before i get to that i should mention the journey that took us to VV. We got VIP tickets which entitled us to a coach instead of a minibus. This was for a 5-6 hour journey which turned into an 8-9 hour journey really. The road takes you through some breathtaking mountains which were pretty to look at but uncomfortable to travel through. We were travelling on a narrow road that was winding its way up and down these mountains which meant switchback corners where you almost end up against the window or against the person beside you. Not nice. Also on one side you have a big cliff rising above you and on the other side is a cliff falling away. A mistake by the driver and we were over the edge because the road is pretty narrow and there is no barrier. But despite this we arrived in VV in one piece but exhausted. So we found a cheap hostel at which we met some people we had been on the slow boat with (Matt and Jen). We got some food, had a few beers and chilled out. Then a couple people decided to hit up the bars on the 'party island'. I declined as i wanted to save myself for the next day. A good night's rest before tubing the next day, sounds good right? If only it had panned out like that. Our hostel was quite close to this party island and being old and wooden was hardly soundproof. So i got to listen to the ridiculously loud music being blared from a group of bars until the wee hours of the morning when i gave up with the earplugs, mp3 and book and took a valium. I had bought these for the bus journey into Vietnam (24 hours) and this one knocked me out.
So not exactly the best start to my VV experience but after getting up the next day i was all geared up to try the tubing i had heard so much about. This, by the way, is not a cheap pastime. It cost 115,000 kip, a lot of money in Laos, to get the tube (roughly 10EUR) half of which is a deposit that you get back if you bring the tube back by 6pm. Considering everybody gets really drunk i'd say there are plenty of people missing out on their deposit. Anyway we got our tubes, got on a tuk-tuk and pretty soon had landed at the starting point for tubing. Upon arriving we saw a shallow, brown, slow-moving river and 4 bars. All the bars offer you a free shot on arrival of some random liquor with something dead fermenting in it (bees, snake, centipede etc). Then they take out their blue marker and draw stuff on you and give you a bandana with a random uncomplimentary slogan written on it. There are drinking games going on, everybody is having a good time which makes it a cool atmosphere to arrive into. We grabbed some beer and kind of took stock of our surroundings. It is one o clock in the day. There are also swings and jumps as well. Fresh from your 'courage in a can' you can climb to a platform and either jump, zipline or swing into the water. Ask where the rocks are though as its a bit dangerous. With my combined handicap of a fear of heights and not being the greatest swimmer i passed on this. Fun to watch though! We got in the tubes after a while and began floating down the river. This is really peaceful and i was quite content in my big rubber ring until a rope smacked me in the head. There are bars crammed onto both sides of the shore here and they all have someone at waters edge throwing out ropes and trying to lure people into their bar. We stayed floating for a little bit and pulled over at a bar where we got play mud volleyball and mud tug-o-war. This was basically falling over in the mud and turned into mudfighting at one point but was a good laugh. A few more drinks and we were off again to another bar, this one had a slide as its attraction. And attractive it was to Orlagh, Tom and Jenna who all went on it. This proved a painful but enjoyable experience for them and i laughed heartily at the awkward ways they landed on the water :) This is pretty much the tubing experience: drink, float, drink, drinking games, jump/slide/swing into the river, drink, float. We got to a place where we could get a tuk-tuk back to the tube station and considering it was almost 6 we took this opportunity to reclaim our deposits. We found out later that we got further down the river than the vast majority of people, some dont even get in their tubes. That night we went out to the party island and stumbled back late. I bumped into one of the guys off my teaching programme here. Didnt recognise him for ages though but thats because when i last saw Jon 6 months ago he didnt have long hair.
The following day was hot and we were all hungover so cue lounging around at the hostel in hammocks. We did diddly squat for the day bar eat, drink, talk and play card games. Shockingly i didnt need alcohol or valium to help me sleep that night, i was maybe getting used to the music. Tubing was on the agenda the next day again but this time we didnt even get in the water. We partied at the first few bars since you can just walk between some of them. It was at the first bar that i met another two teachers from the programme, again i didnt recognise them but again i hadnt seen either Katie or Sarah in 6 months. After catching up with them for a bit i stumbled back to the hostel with the others, had a shower, a bite to eat and went out again. We ended up pulling the plug on that one a bit early due to fatigue. The following morning i booked myself on a bus to Vientiane. Two of the group (Matt and Jen) did the same, we had all had our fill of VV. But my three travel buddies since getting on the slow boat were staying another day, supposedly to go on a motorbike trip to a lagoon but having seen how hungover Tom in particular was i had my doubts. We swapped emails and said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.
All in all Vang Vieng is great fun but you need a of stamina to keep up the drinking. Some people get stuck here and end up working in the bars so it can be done. The town survives on the tubing experience but there are other options of things to do there. Its hard to go there and not go tubing though. I can at least say i went there and did it and survived unscathed (bar my liver maybe). I didnt get one of the t-shirts though, which it almost seems mandatory to do. Ive better things to spend my money on. Vientiane next, havent heard much good about it but surely it cant be all bad?
P.S. The photos are the view from the hostel, obviously i couldnt bring my camera tubing, that would have been stupid.
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