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Published: July 16th 2006
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Vang Vieng is pretty bizarre. It's a small fairly unattractive town but with the most beautiful backdrop scenery. It's not really a las vegas it's just a strange phenomenon here in Laos where everthing is super chilled out and really relatively undevelopped tourism wise (well except Louang Prabang). Here in Vang Vieng you walk along dusty streets and all you can hear is the tv series friends (and occasionally simpsons) blaring out of bars. And it plays over and over again. You daren't enter one of those bars and get comfortable because it's surprisingly hard to leave. Especially when you had one too many tubing the day before. I was only victim to the friends thing once but I ashamed to admit I must have watched like 6 episodes in a row. On top of all the bars playing friends on a constant basis, every restaurant/bar has a special menu featuring 'special' pizza, special soup, special garlic bread... they can really make any food you'd like 'special'. Oh, and to be a little less discrete they list "bag of opium...$5, bag of weed...$5, bag of mushrooms....$5" pretty crazy. This might also explain the friends thing though. People must get burnt out
enough on that stuff to spend days on end watching it.
So the main attraction in Vang Vieng is the famous tubing experience. You get taken upstream on the Nam Song to an Organic Farm where you start the tubing. The farm actually has fantastic food so it's nice to get something to eat before hand. In high season you can actually volunteer at the farm in exchange for cheap accomodation and food which would be pretty cool. ahhhh next time... just like the gibbon experience. So once settled in your tube and floating you hit the first bar only about 50 meters downstream. They pull you in with a bamboo stick and well... you drink. ha, no just kidding. Most bars have swings or zip lines which is definitely the highlight. There were about a half a dozen bars open when we went but apparently in high season there is double that. There are a couple of swings which are super high and very fun. Although we were told a korean guy died two weeks earlier on the big swing so that put things into perspective a little. I decided to save the drinking until after the huge swing.
At the end of the day you are floating back to Vang Vieng and you look up and it's stunning. The karsts are towering over you and the river is so peaceful. Life was pretty good tubing down that river that's for sure.
Our second day in Vang Vieng we did a caving trip. We saw three different caves. The first of which was massive and pretty cool. It was a treacherous walk in though. We all took turns taking the worst falls. It was so muddy. The second cave was the best. You tubed into it and either pulled yourself along with a rope or were so close to the "ceiling" that you just used it to pull yourself along. Not good for claustrophobics! The trip ended with the usual tube down the river. This time we were so exausted from the day of caves we bypassed most of the bars. The next day however, while Hisham went rock climbing, I was somehow convinced to do the tubing trip again. The group was mainly english and scottish guys who clearly like to drink AND do swing stunts. You just pray nothing bad happens. So it was another very fun
The group of us donning dodgy oldschool headlamps
You can see the cave we paddle into in the background day on the river but we decided to head down to Vientiane the next day, or today rather. Wow, I can honestly say I am up to date for once with this website. Not for long though... next I head south and I have a feeling there won't be much in terms of a fast internet connection where I'm heading.
Vientiane seems nice enough. I was warned it was nothing special but it's a lot nicer than I pictured it. Except for the open sewers... with my history those scare me.
I will have a full day tomorrow before my night bus to explore. I hear there are good lao beer gardens... kidding. I really might go look at this temple I hear is nice. Now that Hisham has left I can stop the beer drinking and get back to the culture... yes! hahaha, no really I will miss him. Despite all our bickering we became pretty good friends and it was hard to see him go. Apparently I HAVE to go to Octoberfest next september, so if anyone would like to join me...!
Okay... so long for now.
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Amazing pictures.... I am going t o be at Octobefest as well. What are your plans after? Any more traveling?