Vang Vieng, what a bizarre place. If there’s a place away from Laos in Laos, this is it.
The whole town is set up for one thing, and one thing only – tubing and drinking. Now that might sound like two things, but the two go so neatly (and so dangerously) together that they’re really not.
The theory of the tubing is that you rent out a giant rubber inner tube that’s come from a tractor or something, get on a tuk-tuk, head upriver, throw the tube in the water, jump on top of it and float back down the river. What actually happens is that the tuk-tuk takes you to the first of many bars along the riverfront. Many people never leave this bar, but if you do, you float down the river with the current and people at the other bars throw ropes out with plastic bottles tied on to the end. You can grab the rope if you want, and you get pulled in to the bar with your tube, where you get free shots and buy buckets of various concoctions. The trouble is that the first 7/8 bars are virtually next door to each other, so if you want to visit them all you really get very little tubing done.
We arrived there on the 17th or 18th November fairly late, having got the bus from Luang Prabang across the mountains, which were really beautiful. The first port of call as usual was to find a hostel. We’d decided on the Maylyn, which is recommended in the Lonely Planet. When we got there, however, we found that it’s on the wrong side of the river and there’s a 4000 kip toll to cross the bridge (just under $0.50). That put a bit of a downer on the idea – I didn’t want to pay that every time we entered or left the hostel. While Andy and Olle were checking that out and Anja and I stayed with the tuk-tuk, a random Laotian guy who appeared to have followed our tuk-tuk on his moped introduced himself as Tony and gave us flyers for his guesthouse: Tony’s. Against my better judgement we decided to go and stay there instead.
Tony’s guesthouse actually turned out to be quite magnificent. It’s a new build, with public balconies to sit out on and a nice artistic design. The rooms were pretty nice too.
The next day was tubing day! We went out and rented our tubes for 55,000 kip, plus a 60,000 kip deposit which you get back if you return the tube by 18:00. The tubes were piled on the roof of the tuk-tuk and we were off to the first bar, where we found Maia and Barb from the slow boat.
I forgot to mention, most of the bars have various swings, zip-lines and slides, some of which are more deadly than others. I tried the moneky wire, where you have to hang from a wire stretched across the water, touch a bucket, then make your way back. If you make it you get a free bucket. Irritatingly I only made it half-way back. My arms ached for days afterwards. At some point Maia spray-painted a big sun on my back.
After the second or third bar, Anja and Anna decided to tube all the way back to the town. Olle, Andy and I stayed on for more bars & drinks. God knows what had happened to the Canadian girls at this point. The three of us ended up in the slide bar, where first I destroyed the volleyball game (by knocking the ball into the river – by the time we retrieved it everyone had left), and then was refused entry to the slide as I hadn’t bought a drink – Olle had bought them for us. I didn’t think much of that bar…. They did have a good fire going though.
Since it was coming up to half past 5, we decided to head back, get our deposit and get ready to go out. Olle and I tubed across the river while Andy walked over the bridge. A tuk-tuk back, a quick change & shower and we were off to Q bar. Several more buckets were consumed, laughter and dancing ensued, and then I woke up in my room wondering what happened in the hour and a half between when the bar closes and when I actually got back to the guesthouse.
The next day was largely spent sitting in Family Guy and Friends bars – they have bars that just play back-to-back episodes of various TV shows. Basically it was a chill-out day.
The day after that Anja and Anna left for Vientiane. Andy, Olle and I wanted to go tubing again, so we did, but without the tubes. It was pretty cold that day anyway so we didn’t want to get in the water. We saw a couple of injuries that day – someone came off a zip line wrong and knocked his head on a rock (presumably). Lot of blood ensued, Someone else decided to climb a pole that really wasn’t designed for climbing – it snapped, but he was lucky to land on the flat deck instead of on the step. There was also a stunt swing competition. Later we went to Oh La La and Q bar and partied with Frieda and Anna, who we’d met on the tuk-tuk to the tubing.
The following day was the day we were all supposed to be heading to Vientiane. At the last minute Andy decided he was too ill to get on the bus, and the two of us cancelled. Olle had a flight to catch from Vientiane, so he had to go. So we had an extra night in Vang Vieng. Andy and I had had separate rooms up till then, so decided to get a twin room and save money. The new room was upstairs, and wasn’t a patch on our previous rooms. I even had a nice cute pink blanket with animals on it. Anyway, as Andy was feeling sorry for himself still I ended up going out with the two swedish girls again. I guess I dumped them at Q bar, as I ended up heading to Sunset bar with some random swedish guy we’d met that night, then chatted to various people at sunset bar, which to be honest was way too chilled out for that time at night.
On the following day we mainly hung out at the Family Guy bar, until it was time to get the sleeper bus to Vientiane.
