Vang Vieng would be just another dirt poor Laotian town if it didn’t have unspoiled natural beauty on its outskirts, and some enterprising individuals came up with the idea to rent truck inner tubes to backpackers to float down Nam Song River, and then others set up bars along the same river, so backpackers can get plastered on bathtub local spirits and beer, and engage in heavy petting while near naked, with their new-found friends. Due to pressure from Western governments who objected to their youth dying by the dozen due to drowning while heavily intoxicated, tubing was shut down, and when it restarted many of the bars shut down, and with some half-hearted safety demonstrations mandated.
The town resembles a low rent version of Bangkok’s Khao Sahn road, and while I enjoyed my stay it feels a little forced, and the locals a little too eager to empty my pockets.
After two days languishing in Vang Vieng, I succumbed to the allure of tubing. I walked to the tubing agency, paid my fee, and was promptly told to return in an hour when they had more people. I had a hasty and tasty lunch of a Lao-style sandwich loaded with salami and avocado, then returned, and was promptly ordered into the back of a truck. We were driven around for half an hour, picking up people until the truck resembled a sardine can.
We were then driven out of town to the starting point, where we got our brief safety talk, and then we were on our way.
I found the current too strong (this was just after the rainy season) for relaxed tubing, which lead to too short a time between the three bar stops. I spent the first bar stop alone, nursing a Big Beer Lao, thinking I was too old for this shit. At the second stop, I was feeling more sanguine about the situation, and spent some time sitting at a table with some English tubers, but struggled to join in with the conversation. One of the guides decided to start a conga line, which was entertaining but I was certainly not drunk enough to join in.
It’s worth noting here that I don’t magically become more sociable when I travel, sometimes I push myself to be more sociable, and this gets mixed results, from me and other people.
On the last section before the last bar, I was invited into a flotilla of tubes and tubers, featuring two vivacious American ladies, two very young and charming Dutch lads, and one very polite Indian man. We continued our time together at the last bar, and later had a few more drinks at the Mad Monkey, before breaking up the party due to quite a few of them going hot air balooning early the next day.
The next day I hired a scooter and spent the day checking out a few of the blue lagoons, which were quite impressive.
However the scenery was quite incredible just from the road, so I spent a lot of time just riding around taking in views.
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Adrian's Got The Moose 