Carpe diem in Vang Viene

A Canadian once gave my brother this piece of advice having being five years on the road: "before you head off, put a map up on your bedroom wall and mark a detailed plan of your route. When you return home, point at the map and laugh at it."

If I remember to do this, I will definately think of Loas. Before coming here we didn't plan anything because we were told that Laos was fantastic and we would have a great time wherever we go so presumed everything would fall into place. I heard many different pieces of advice about where to go to which didn't help in picking our next destination. Louis Armstrong was wrong, we didn't have all the time in the world. So when in doubt, why not check out the capital city, right? Clutching at staws we made our way north towards Vientiene which would take us a whopping 24 hours which excited me as much as a bag of turnips covered in marmite because all I wanted to do was lie on the floor and hug the toilet bowl. I had a mystery illness that left me in a heap of destruction and a few pounds lighter. Not a diet plan I would recommend. Luckily I was able to sleep after pumping myself with a sufficient amount of drugs until we had to get out for the day at Pakse. On the way, we passed through Savannaket which seemed to have some potential and it's a pity we didn't have time to check it out. Instead we were stuck in a dull Pakse for an afternoon in the searing heat but all I wanted to do was sleep. Seeing as I couldn't keep any food or drink down I couldn't sit in a cafe and read my book so I sought refuge in an internet cafe and tried to sleep on a bottle of water feigning to do internet related things. I wasn't too bothered by not seeing Pakse because it didn't look like an exactly kicking place and as bad as it sounds, all there was to see were a handful of temples so I didn't feel like I was missing out on a lot - I am going to use the "when you've seen Angkor Watt you've seen it all" excuse for as long as I can! Hours later I was greeted by one of my friends covered in water. We thought the new year was over but evidently not because a massive group of revellers had gathered on the main street throwing buckets of water on the passing traffic and my friends and even narrowly sparing the police! Feeling a little perkier I joined the barrage of people and the pumping pop music and started throwing buckets of water in every possible direction - it was a nice way to use up energy in time for the night bus to Vientiene to sleep off the virus I had. I'm glad we were here to experience this because afterwards we met people who had been to Pakse and said there was little to offer and was quite dead so we were lucky.

By the time we got to Vientiene it felt like we were travelling for days and like bears with sore bums, we were not settling for second best - especially after being deprived of a fan for the past week in 40 degrees of sunshine. So after traipsing around all the hostels to only find that they were booked up and if not, the prices were hiked up for the new year (yes that excuse again - it's bloody over!), we were at the end of our thether and none of us were feeling a great vibe from Vientiene. For an Asian city to have no traffic at 7.30 in the morning is sacreligious! I think we were a little scared by this lack of choas. We even managed to recruit a group of Canadians to our anti-Vientieneness who had just been in the middle of new year madness on the Kho San road - the silence was hurting their ears. Maybe we were a little harsh to jump on the next possible bus north to Vang Viene but sometimes you have to run with your gut (no matter how impetuous it may behave at times) and act on it. And this was certainly one of those times.

Vang Viene is a special place. Nirvana if you will. The first reason being for this is the difficult trek there with the steep mountain face being the deterrant for many people and in certain seasons. It was something of a three hour climb but nothing crazier than any mountain range in Europe. The 3rd world standard roads however played the leading role in our slow ascent but I didn't quabble with that after I witnessed a coach and motorbike crash with no sign of an ambulance climbing up the winding roads and luckily for us we seemed to get the only driver who drives under 100km p/h in Laos! The Tuscanesque scenery also provided a pleasent encore my lenghty journey but sadly due to the fad of burning the hillside land (it's called "slash burn agriculture" apparently), I didn't get to enjoy the much talked about view of beautiful hills rolling into infinity - I'm not exactly sure why the Laotian farmers think it's smart because after the bus journey, my clothes smelled of bomb fire smoke - imagine what it's doing to our lungs. When the bus pulled in finally, I felt like I was rewarded for all my suffering in the last 24 hours. It was the most beautiful place I had seen in my entire life. And I've been to a few places. Wherever you turn, tall limestone karst hills poke out their heads and greet you. The only formation I can compare this to is the hill that's home to the famous stature of Christ with outstretched arms in Rio de Janeiro. Well, imagine handfuls of them dotted around the place...which brings me on to my second reason - the scenery. I do not know how it is not a world heritage site. The third reason explains the title of this blog: hedonism. I am not going to lie and play the "there's something for everyone" card. This town is marketed towards backpackers and backpackers only. If you are not here to partake in at least one of the extreme activities, one day will suffice to see what Vang Viene has to offer unless you are content to lie back on a hammock for days and read a book taking in the beautiful scenery. During the day you can take part in various water activities or go caving. If you're hanging around the town, every bar houses large screens playing popular American series' like Friends and serving Western food. Every other establishment offers massages and beauty treatments or cheap renditions of Raybans while the roadside is lined with stalls cooking tasty sweet and savory pancakes. So you can gather we're not really getting a taste of authentic Laos here. At night there is really only one option (unless you go to bed) and that is frequenting one of the bars on the island in the middle of the river. From 6pm there are cocktail hours and people keep coming until closing time at 3am. We may still be in curfew-driven Laos but something tells me rules are ignored very often which is funny because the reason the curfew was implemented was because the Government did not want foreigners getting the wrong impression of the youth culture drinking too much so they came up with this solution. Everywhere you turn at night, there is something to tempt the tipsy partygoers. Every establishment possesses a "happy" menu selling everything from marijuana shakes to opium tea, I even saw crystal meth scrawled in pencil on one of the menus. Despite the lax attitude towards drug-taking on the island and in the town, any of the older men, I was told, who frequent these bars are always undercover police waiting to pounce on the tourists who let their curiosity get the better of them.

The fourth reason deserves a paragraph in isolation. Even though it is technically part of the third reason - everybody comes to Vang Viene to tube. There is nowhere else in the world I have been that has come up with something as imaginative as the tubing affair on Vang Viene's Mekong river. The deal is that you pay a small sum of money, they give you a rubber ring, all you need to take is some money in your swim shorts and you are escorted to the top of the river and you spend the afternoon floating to and from the riverside bars and then you can choose to float down to the bottom or to get picked up in a tuk tuk. And don't worry if your steering skills are no good, the locals are one step ahead waiting with their long sticks for you to grab on to. There are about 10 bars along the riverside and each one possesses at least one large swing or trapeze so you can throw yourself into the hands of the Gods and catapult yourself into the murky Mekong. Some offer the likes of table tennis and volleyball and others are just places to refuel. If that's not your bag, you can sit there with your bucket of Samsong whiskey and coke or sample the happy menu and laugh at the people who jump off the swings too early. The only thing I can compare this experience to is a music festival in the water. As you float down the river with 20 others between the karst hills, music flows out of the bars. My two favourite things - music and beautiful scenery - pure bliss. It's truly unique. Nearly everyone I met had a similar fantasy about tubing becoming an institution in the 1st world but I'm telling you now, it would fail every Health and Safety test that exists. Which is not reassuring when you see the the local hospital. It's easy to put that stuff out of your head when you're being plyed with cheap alcohol all day but when we witnessed a guy who fell off a platform with a broken rib and how nobody working at the place came to his rescue or called an ambulance, we got a bit freaked out. I guarantee you it will be one of the best experiences of your travels but just mind yourself. Nearly everyone ends up staying longer in Vang Viene because they can't get enough of the tubing and the laissez-faire attitude. We went tubing three times and stayed for a week but that is nothing compared to the mammoth three weeks our friend Ben spent there! My friend once said about Buenos Aires that it won't let you leave no matter how much you try - it's fantastic but it sucks the life out of you - this is the same for Vang Viene. People who spend all their money wind up working in the bars to finance their tubing expenses, we saw it so many times. We have met some messed up characters here - obviously a result of overstaying their welcome - the funniest had to be the mid 30s Bisexual Norweigen Writer who tried to seduce everyone by telling them about his sexual exploits. Ugh. On the more normal side of the scale of outstaying the Vang Viene welcome, two American girls said goodbye to us with their backpacks on one morning and we saw them pulling pints behind the bar a few hours later. We also had a false alarm departure but it's almost compulsory in Vang Viene.

Even though these four things are the ingredients for a good time, it does not mean anything if you're not with the right people. Ask any traveller and they could tell you about their best experiences and they could have been in hellholes like Stung Treng. It's all about the people you meet. Lucky for us we struck gold and made a huge group of friends from all over the world which made Vang Vieng an unforgettable place. I was sad to leave and would have stayed longer if it weren't for Emma knocking some sense into me. So we finally borded that bus and set off sample the delights of Luang Prabang...

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