Advertisement
So far we've spent idyllic weeks in rural Southern Laos and had a taste of sophistication in the capital Vientiane. But now it's time to hook up with the backpacking massive to join in with the Laos 'must do'...tubing at Vang Vieng. From tales told of wild partying while floating downriver in huge tractor inner tyres, I'm imagining a kind of Club 18-30 on the river, just with Khao San dreads and happy pants. As the bus pulls into town I'm pleasantly surprised by how beautiful Vang Vieng is...the small streets of bars and restaurants seeming very small and a bit silly in the shadows of huge limestone karsts. There are bamboo huts clustered on both banks of the Nam Song river and we check into the peaceful 'Otherside' bungalows, reached by a rickety bamboo bridge that will come back to haunt me.
I can imagine that in the high season the place would be a bit like Soddom and Gommorah, but at this time of year the crowds have started to disperse; it's not yet deserted, but it's far from full. On our first night, we find more people slumped in the video bars watching endless reruns of Friends
and The Simpsons like some weird kind of limbo, than there are burning up the dancefloors of the countless nightclubs. It's a bit of a shame as the open air riverside venues look amazing...like a mini hippy Vegas...all neon and lazers but sadly no ravers.
Thinking this may end up a more chilled interlude than we were expecting, we hire bicycles and head out to explore the surrounding countryside. There are hundreds of caves in the area and we decide to head for Tham Phu Kham, about 6kms from town. It's a really hot day to be cycling on a shadeless dusty road, but the surrounding countryside is jaw dropping and makes it worth the effort. We pass through villages of smiling faces calling "Sabaidee!", and it's good to know that you don't have to go far from the tourist ghetto of Vang Vieng to be back in familiar, friendly rural Laos.
We'd been told that there's a 'blue lagoon' at our destination and I'm praying for it not to be just a puddle as we arrive desperately in need of refreshment. We're not disappointed...I can't believe the colour of the water, it really is swimming pool blue.
Bright orange carp cluster in the shade of the bank and a huge tree's branches overhang the lagoon to make a natural set of diving boards over the deep water. I get wobbly legs jumping from the lowest branch but Ritch styles it, jumping from the highest branch, a good 30' above the water.
A steep 200mtr climb takes us to the cave entrance where we quickly regret forgetting our torches. We scramble about in the dark for a bit, noting that flipflops were the wrong footwear choice for this particular adventure. Double doh. We edge towards a shaft of light, dramatically piercing the darkness to illuminate a Buddha shrine. Beyond this is a deep echoing blackout and we (err, by that I mean, I...) sensibly decide we are unprepared for any further exploration, tales of tourists dying after getting lost for days in this cave system still fresh in my mind. So we head back down for another swim in the blue lagoon and a much cooler cycle home.
That evening over dinner, having decided that tomorrow we're totally tubing, we spot quite a few casualties hobbling home with bandages round knees and ankles still clutching their last Mekong Bucket to numb the pain. I make a mental note of how not to do it. Shame my memory's not too hot.
We hire a waterproof bag for our valuables and the massive inner tubes and jump into a tuktuk to the launch point 3km north of town. We hear it before we see it, and it's not the roar of river rapids. Bass rumbles from 4 bars all with dancefloors out over the water, and there's loads of people. I'd got it wrong with my image of a Club 18-30 crowd, this is Club Gap Year...I seriously doubt there's anyone here over 24, except maybe the group of ropey looking 'lady'boys storming the dancefloor. So we go deep cover, arming ourselves with drinks by the bucket and make like it's MTV Spring Break!
Each bar has it's own 'extreme sports' slant...from high wire trapezes and zip lines over the water, to deathslides and mud pools. Ritch carries on with his action hero stunts, nonchalantly throwing himself off the zips and high wires, whilst I am wrestled into the mud by a scarily strong New Zealander...only her bikini confirming that yes, she is a girl! It is a seriously funny day which flies by in a blur...we don't even make it into the tubes, which in retrospect is probably a very good thing. It's all over by sundown and we head back into town in a tuktuk, our unused tubes on the roof.
We almost make it back completely unscathed...having survived high wires and mud wrestling Kiwis. But on the home stretch I get my foot stuck in the bamboo bridge and fall, my trapped foot leaving me dangling over the edge. In the commotion I drop our camera and money, and once Ritch has helped me back up, we can't find any of our stuff. They've either fallen into the river or been swiped by the people that passed by whilst Ritch was rescuing me.
My swollen, bruised foot is agony and I fear it may be broken, but it pales into comparison to the sadness of our lost camera. It's not the camera, but the last 3 weeks worth of photos...all our Laos shots, gone. We go into mourning for the loss of something irreplaceable.
(obviously, we lost all our Vang Vieng photos, including some hilarious but never to be seen video clips of mud wrestling and high wire daredevilry. These kindly donated by friends along the way 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.054s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0362s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb