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Published: April 28th 2009
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Monkey Man
Me and my new best buddy Vang Vieng is a small town halfway between Luang Prabang and Vientiene. Located along the Nam Song, for hundreds of years this was a quiet, sleepy place. Then it took a turn. God only knows why, but the SE Asia backpacker army converged on the this town making it into, basically, 24/7 Spring Break. There are almost no locals in Vang Vieng, so if you are looking for an authentic Laos experiance you are looking in the wrong place. I would guess that tubing is what initially drew the people here. Tubing, in short is placing yourself into a inflated tractor tube and floating gently down the river. That is until some exterprising Laotions got together and started building bamboo bars on the river.
Words cannot describe the mayhem that followed. Your average day "tubing" involves very little tubing at all. You start off by renting an inner tube from one of the many local shops in town. For the price of about 4 bucks you get your tube and a ride 2-3 miles north to the start of the bars. These bars as I mentioned earlier are open air bamboo platforms that hang out over the river. They are
Monkey was tired
He actually took a liking to me and would follow me around the bar elevated about 10 ft off of the river itself. Music is everywhere and people are running around in there bathing suits, beer or bucket of cocktail in hand. Yes I said bucket. Thats there signature drink around here, whiskey or vodka and mixer all in a childs sand castle bucket. Straws included. As you might imagine with the combo of uber-strong laos whiskey and the sub-asian tropic sun, people get drunk. Really drunk. So what would any responsible business owner do with a bar full of drunk people on the water? Build a rope swing of course. And not just any rope swing, but a jury rigged 40ft high, oh my god thats crazy, rope swing. I mean come on! You have to climb a tree, 40ft up, and then edge your way out onto a wooden platform. The swing is just a metal bar attached to a rope, like a trapeeze artist. Except your not in the circus and they are not usally drunk. Letting go too early will have you in the rocks, and certain death. Too late and you will sail off 100 ft down the river, and maybe if your lucky just a few broken bones.
They have divers to get you if you dont surface, except that the "divers" are 10 years old. Seriously. People die every year doing this and because there is absolutly no tort law or punitive legal system out here it continues to operate. I think you know where this story is going. Needless to say a combo of my ego and a whiskey bucket that might have been nail polish remover, forced me to give it a go. Im not going to lie, as you are climbing up that rickey latter up the tree just about every lick of common sense in your body is telling you to turn around and run. But you only live once right? Getting to the top, staring down at the river and bar faaaaar beneeth me all that "you only live once" crap went right out of my mind. Next thing I know I am being handed the bar, a small obviously home engineered contraption not much thicker than a hotdog. My hands start to sweat, which in turn might make me lose my grip. It was now or never. I remember that last thing I thought was "this is nuts." Stepping off, wind
Mia and I
Start of the night out rushing through you hair, sound of the river and the bar music and the cheering. Reached the apex of the swing, keep holding on, swinging back now. On the back swing I am so high I almost hit the platform I jumped from, thats bad I think, rocks below. Final arc, swinging back to the bar and theres my landing zone. About 6ft deep Im told, not enough for a guy my height to go legs straight down. I let go of the bar and fall, im still a good 35 ft above the water. Hitting water at that height hurts, but the adrenalene mask most of the pain. Splash! I bend my legs but still hit the bottom, im lucky, not that hard. I surface with a smile on my face and say out loud, "Im never doing that again."
The best part of the whole exprience is that when you are done with one bar you jump directly into the river, tube and all, and float down to the next bar. The bar will see you coming and throw you a water bottle attached to a rope. Grab the rope and they start reeling you in! Thats
End of one of the nights
A bar with hammocks! Somewhere in Laos there is a genius running around! what I call getting people in the door. All in all it was an amazing time. Met some Sweedish people on the the bus to Vang Vieng, Mia, Malin and Philip, and we all hung out on my three days there. For whatever reason we just kept running into Sweeds while in Vang Vieng. Which was alright because they are a blast to party with. But all thing must come to an end, and three days of competition drinking was enough for me. That and the hostel I was staying at was a complete dump. Think room so hot your deoderent melts and bugs crawlin on you in the middle of the night. But hey, it was 3 bucks a night. After about 5 days tubing people start writing on themselves the number of days they have been at it. 2 weeks, 1 month, I saw a guy who had "160 days tubing" drawn on his chest! Three was enough for me, and the next thing I knew I found myself once again back on the bus, motoring to Vientiene.
Oh by the way, I got to play with a monkey in one of the bars, how cool is
More Sweeds
These guys were stupendously drunk that!
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Stephie
non-member comment
looks like you having a awesome time... I love that pic of you and your new buddy... you both look so cute. What's his name? Well hope to talk with you soon! Love,Aloha Steph