Tubing in the Vang Vieng

Most places we have been so far hand out free maps when you arrive. These maps are quite handy, pointing out things like banks, ATMs, pharmacies, restaurants, points of interest and temples. Vang Vieng was much the same: we arrived and were handed a map. Though on closer inspection we noticed something: the start point for tubing and plenty of bars were clearly marked, but not a single temple or cultural place. I like to think that pretty much says it all. Welcome to Vang Vieng.

Beautiful scenery around Vang Vieng

But first, let me start with how we got to Vang Vieng. Seven hours from hell is how. Remember I had a tummy bug in Luang Prabang, so I hadn't been well. Well, the next seven hours from Luang Prabang consisted of a me trying to hold down everything as we weaved and bounced our way along a narrow, badly rutted road, twisting up over mountains, passing through dirt poor villages and dodging trucks, bicycles, potholes and cattle. Oh, and that's the main highway.

So after finding a guesthouse and having a wee lie down waiting for the queasiness from our bus ride to pass, we left to find dinner. Stepping out onto the dirt lane outside our guesthouse we had to jump back as a tuk-tuk roared past with two drunk girls, beers in hand, hanging out the sides chanting at the top of their voices "Let's get f***ing munted! Let's get f***ing munted!". You stay classy Vang Vieng.

We walked out onto the main street of the tourist area, which runs along the riverside. Restaurants opened onto the street, and low tables and pillows sat inside while Friends, Family Guy or South Park played. We wandered around, checking out the area. A young Brit slurred at us to drink at his bar, we smiled and walked on. Passing one of the tubing shopfronts I paused to read the sign. A girl noticed my interest and tried helping "Don't bother with the tubing, if you don't return it before 6 they take your money. Just take a tuk-tuk up to the bars and get smashed. Heaps cheaper!"
"Thanks" I smiled at her and walked off.

We slept in until mid-day, as you do in Vang Vieng, then hired bicycles for the afternoon. We wanted to go see the blue lagoon and cave which was somewhere on the other side of the river. We set off with a really basic map from the bike shop and cycled along the river front before crossing a one-lane wooden bridge. From there, the road turned to gravel and we cycled through a small village which turned into rice fields which lay bare in the summer sun. We entered a wide valley and on either side of us were jagged tree-covered limestone cliffs. Every few hundred metres, signs in broken English claimed to be 'the' blue lagoon and/or cave and to turn off but we cycled on in the humid heat.

Speedy Sarah

We'd only been cycling for maybe half-an-hour when we came across a wee shack on the side of the road selling food and drink. We stopped to grab some much needed icy cold water and rest in the shade. The owner, a friendly old Thai man, asked where we were headed and upon telling him he offered to draw us a map, saying there's a lot of fake blue lagoons and they're all "shit". His map saved us, as we found the lagoon about an hour later. Except it wasn't a lagoon, in fact it's actually just a very blue swimming hole in a creak, still it was incredibly refreshing to escape the heat. After cooling off we headed up to the cave, it was huge, with a small golden reclining Buddha laying in the middle on a natural raised platform. We only went a hundred metres in, carefully placing every foot, dodging huge boulders but by that point it was pitch black and I could hear bats. I wasn't going any further! We turned around and headed back to Vang Vieng.

Finally we had come to the last thing on the must do list for Vang Vieng: tubing. After some procrastination we couldn't put it off any longer, it was now or never. We donned our trusty half-moon singlets (already covered in paint so a bit more wouldn't hurt) and once again psyched ourselves up for the madness that was sure to follow and went to hire a tube. Two men sat behind a wooden desk collecting money while half a dozen locals sat along the wall watching us. After paying an absurd amount of money (for Laos) we were loaded onto a tuk-tuk, our inner-tubes thrown on the roof, and we headed out of town.

We turned off ten minutes later and bounced down a gravel road, coming to a stop next to the river. Music blared from over the water and voices shouted. Taking our inner tubes we walked past a bamboo stall selling cocktails, a sign warning tubers not to give money to begging children and crossed a hacked-together rickety wooden bridge to the first bar. Our inner-tubes stacked we were greeted by bar-staff who tied colourful cotton bracelets onto our wrists (the aim of the game - see how many you can collect) and offered us free whiskey shots. We declined, ordered Beerlao and found a spot in the hot sun. Bars sat mostly empty on both sides of the river, desperate for low-season customers and a few people played on rope swings and flying foxes. A couple of tubers floated past, down to the next bar where a rope was flung out and they were pulled in, given more colourful bracelets and free whisky shots. We decided to follow.

The rest of the afternoon we moved from bar to bar via inner-tube, collecting bracelets, playing games, drinking Beerlao and noticing that at some bar-staff were more drunk than customers! We ended up joining a group of English guys and floated, chatted and watched the scenary pass by. The bars became few and far between, fifteen or twenty minutes floating before the next one, and the light began to fade. We started hoping we weren't too far from town. A smart tuk-tuk driver sat by the river with a sign saying '2 km to town'. The English guys said 'sod that' and got out, but Jade and an Australian couple we'd picked up along the way reckoned we weren't that far, so we kept going. They were wrong. Night came with no sign of Vang Vieng and we floated along in the dark, alone. It felt like we were on the river forever and after at least another hour past the 2km sign, I was desperate to get out. We drifted along, chatting amongst ourselves while keeping an eye out for any source of light or sound. Then finally, lights! I was so happy, we paddled over to the riverbank and scrambled up the side and walked soaking wet back into town. We silently dropped off our inner-tubes off, collected what remained of the bond (they deduct you the later you get back) and squelched back to our room.

Next morning we got up early, packed and went to find breakfast. The town was dead. We grabbed breakfast and got on a minivan out of there. Another four hour drive south to the capital Vientiane lay ahead of us. Oh goody.

It would turn out to be worse than we expected.