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Published: August 16th 2006
Vang Vieng High Street
Notice the drainage - seriously dangerous when staggering home late at night!Vientiane as a capital city is amazingly quiet, especially after coming from the chaos that is Hanoi. There is hardly any traffic, the Tuk Tuk drivers take no for an answer the first time you say it and there are hardly any street vendors and beggars tugging at your shirt every 5 minutes. It is like a quiet town by Thai standards, let alone English. We really should have stayed a while longer to have a proper look around, but we all agreed that we wanted to get to Vang Vieng as quickly as we could and spend more time there as it is a bit livelier and there is generally more to do.
We booked a bus to Vang Vieng the following morning. The journey was around 6 hours which was mainly taken up by learning Lao from a local. We learned a few words and phrases, but by far the most useful of them all was ‘ser lung Beer Laos’ (translates to ‘please bring Beer Laos’!!). We arrived at Vang Vieng, booked into a guesthouse and went for a drink at the bar next door. We had a look through the menu to order food and found that
the last page was a menu of mushrooms, weed and opium! As far as first impressions go, this place looked messy and we had only been there about half an hour!
The village in general is hugely chilled out. You can see that it is very much geared towards backpackers and has more of a western feel to it than Vientiane. The bars are open past 11pm, the restaurants have ‘happy’ pizza, mushroom shakes and opium tea on the menu and there is a strange phenomenon here called the ‘Friends’ bar. You either love or hate this concept. Basically the main street is lined with bars that play nothing but Friends DVDs throughout every open hour. There are about 5 of these bars and as you walk down the main street all you can hear is the theme tune, or canned laughter, or Ross’ bloody annoying monotone voice dithering on. It is a nightmare. In fact there is only about 1 bar along the whole street that isn’t playing a film or programme of some description. It is a horrible thought I know, however I have to admit that I did frequent these bars on numerous occasions when the
hangover was so bad that I couldn’t face the outside world!
My time at Vang Vieng has become somewhat of a blur. It mainly consisted of tubing, then having a day off to recover at one of the above mentioned ‘Friends’ bars, then tubing again, then a day off etc etc. The scenery here is amazing; the whole village is surrounded with huge cloud topped limestone karsts that are reminiscent of Jurassic Park. In the mornings they look especially eerie as the jungle covered ridges are still draped with light mist weaving its way in between the vegetation. You expect to hear the shriek of a Pterodactyl circling overhead or the distant roar of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The main attraction of Vang Vieng is the ‘tubing’. Basically it involves floating down the Nam Song River in an inflated tractor inner tube. There are a number of different tubing stations that have formed a kind of cartel in that they all have their set days of opening. You pay $3.50 to hire a tube and life jacket, pile into a Tuk Tuk and make the 3 km journey upriver to the start. The rest is pretty self explanatory; you
walk to the river bank, plant your arse in your tube and float off down stream!
As you make your way along the river there are bars lining the banks at regular intervals. If you fancy a drink all you have to do is shout ‘Beer Lao’ and they throw you a rope to drag you in to shore. Each bar has a different trapeze, zip wire or cliff jump that you can use as many times as you like if you buy a drink. I cannot put into words how much fun tubing is. There is no better way to spend a day, floating along with a beer, getting progressively more drunk as you go, and meeting some of the craziest bastards you will ever know!
After a couple of days of tubing we had become quite friendly with a group of Irish guys who were as interested in having a good time as we were. When floating in between bars we would all link tubes to make a massive raft. As we were doing this somebody made a pirate ‘gaaaarrrrr!’ And that was it. For the rest of our stay we were all pirates and made
ourselves known by speaking in a pirate accent at the top of our voices everywhere we went. We would follow everything we say with a ‘gaarrrr’, greet each other by saying ‘ahoy there shipmates!!’, and refer to dogs as ‘them there ferocious land sharks!’ Needless to say this was usually after a few drinks!! Unfortunately a lot of people didn’t share in our sea-faring games and we seemed to clear out every bar we went to after around 15 minutes! Strangely enough this didn’t deter us in the slightest and we would respond by shouting, ‘aaaaarrrrgggghhhhh!!! We’ve taken this vessel cap’n’. My god we must have looked insane!
It was such good fun that we actually went as far as buying bandannas and giving each other pirate names (oh dear). They were as follows: ‘Slim Jim Silver’ (later changed to ‘Slim Jim Spunk Slurper’ as it was decided that the original wasn’t quite derogatory enough!), ‘Pete The Purple-headed Pirate Chucker’ (as you can imagine, there were a number of variations on this after the beers had been flowing), ‘Deanos The Cabin Boy 5 Gold Sovereigns’ (you have to say it aloud for the full effect), ‘Captain Pugwash’ or ‘Steve
the Pirate’ (not sure how Rich got away with such a tame one), ‘Steamboat Willy Tickler’ (Darren), and finally ‘Keano the Kamikaze Swing King’ (on account of his spectacular back flops when jumping from the trapeze at the second bar). Unfortunately Connor and Donnal were never named, not sure why, but they definitely deserve a mention as part of the cutlass wielding crew!
There are so many stories spread across numerous drunken nights that have merged into one so I’m going to use a bit of artistic license and tell them as one. First of all, and maybe the most important is that we wasted no time in discovering the local whiskey, which challenges the legendary Bia Hoi as the cheapest drink in South East Asia. It is called Tiger Whiskey and costs 7000 kip. There are 10,000 kip to 1 USD so that makes a litre of Whiskey around 40p. The crazy thing is that I bought a packet of Rizlas that cost 6000 kip (!?), also the bottle of coke that you buy to use as a mixer is over double the price at 15,000! The best part however is the label. It is written in English
and is supposed to say ‘Smooth and Mellow’, however they made a bit of a typo and it actually reads ‘Smooth and Mellon’, hilarious!
The usual drill would be to buy a bottle of Smooth and Mellon before we set off tubing, considering a bucket on the river cost 30,000 kip and only contained half a bottle! We would gradually become more intoxicated as the day went on. As a result of this we always spent far too long at each bar and ended up finding ourselves floating down the river in the dark. At the end of the tubing stretch, the river splits into a fork; right takes you to the end, and left…….well no-one really knows where left takes you, probably Vientiane! As we could never see the fork coming in the dark we always ended up frantically paddling to the right, then as the current was quite strong at this point, we would have a nightmare paddling over to the shore. On this particular night we took the right hand fork very well, however went sailing past the finish at breakneck speed, in an act of desperation Deano grabbed the ‘Tubing End’ flag that was suspended
above the water from a rope attached to each bank. The rope began to stretch, and stretch until the flag finally ripped and sent the rope whipping backwards nearly taking everyone’s heads off! Not sure where the flag went, probably lost forever! Sorry to anyone reading this who may have come along after us and ended up 5km downstream!
We had a bite to eat then hit the ‘Nam Lao Disco’, or ‘Crappy Disco’ as it was more commonly known. This place was really bad! It was mainly full of locals, of which a majority were ladyboys or mincers. We were all well and truly tanked after a day sailing the seven seas, so donned our bandannas and proceeded to have a crap dance-off just to take the piss out off all the cheesey clubbers surrounding us. We stood in a circle and off we went. We were all pretty confident of our routines until Keano ruined us all by pulling off the worst worm in history that looked more like he was humping the floor!
After staggering out of the club and wading through a river of wet tar, breaking my flip flop in the process (they
were re-surfacing the main street) we negotiated the treacherous river crossing (a seriously rickety bamboo bridge that is dangerous after a few drinks!) and made our way to the usual night time haunt, the Island Bar. This place stays open pretty much until sunrise.
It didn’t take long until the evening’s entertainment began, in the form of ‘Chicken Fighting’. This sport is thousands of years old, very spiritual and seriously dangerous. Until now it has lurked in the underworld where illegal matches regularly take place in abandoned warehouses and multi-storey car parks, but it is beginning to become recognized as a legitimate sport, and maybe the most lethal martial art of all time. Soon it will be sweeping the world as the newest and most brutal form of combat. There are no rules as to the number of fighters at any one time and numbers have been known to reach as many a 50 in one bout. The basic rules are to assume the stance (which must be held throughout the match) and continue until one person gives up, or is knocked out. The stance is achieved by placing your left hand on your forehead and extending your right
arm through the loop created. Your right elbow should then be rested inside your left, allowing full leverage. Your right hand must be open to allow maximum slapping capability. When the bell rings it is every man for himself!
As you may have guessed, the above paragraph is complete bollocks! It was originally invented by two Canadanians that Rich and Dean met, who wanted to invent a style of fighting where it is actually impossible to hurt each other. It is absolutely hilarious to watch and even better to take part, as you can see from the attached pictures! Anyone reading must spread the word!
Keano The Kamikaze King Swinger decided to go for some local loving the previous night, however was trying to forget that it ever happened. Unfortunately our evening was interrupted by the said local lady (whom may I add was….shall we say….intimidating to say the least!) coming to the bar and staking her claim to Keano! He couldn’t get away and she was getting a little violent! We decided the only option was to physically pick him up and run away. This worked for all of 5 minutes, after which she was straight back
Deano
Shortly after knocking my fan over and successfully shattering 2 of the three blades making it pretty much useless. Hilarious at the time, but after spending a week in the room without a fan it didn't smell too fresh! in his face shouting and pointing her finger. In the end he legged it with her hot on his heels and they were later spotted further down the road, she was actually throwing rocks at him in the street!! haha! These Lao women are feisty!
It was a real shame actually, as we had planned to have our last expedition tubing the seven seas the next day, however following the incident with the local, the Irish chaps unsurprisingly abandoned ship! Once they had gone, we seemed to be the only people in the village that were interested in having a laugh. It was really quiet compared to the mayhem of the previous few days, which actually turned out to be a good thing as we decided to do something constructive!
After taking a day to recover, we hired out some mountain bikes went to visit some caves in the surrounding area. We set off for Phoukham cave. It is located 6 km outside the village. The journey there was really nice, admiring truly breathtaking scenery and making our way through small villages, the kids shouting ‘sabadee!’ (hello in lao) at the tops of their voices and running alongside
the bikes. I must admit though it was dangerous at times, I nearly went arse over tit after narrowly avoiding a chicken that decided to make a b-line for my front wheel. After cycling for half an hour along roads that were literally rubble tracks, we arrived at Phoukham cave. At the foot of the mountain there is a beautifully clear lagoon in the river which was a godsend in our sweaty state. We spent a while swimming and jumping from the overhanging tree. Feeling refreshed, we began the steep climb to the cave entrance some 200 metres above. The cave itself is a vast cavern containing a reclining Buddha. The Buddha is not really too impressive, however the cave itself is. We made our way down a very slippery slope to find signs for a second cavern through a small opening. Unfortunately the lack of a torch stopped us here and we made our way back. We all really enjoyed the day nonetheless. After so many regimented tours, it was really nice to have the freedom to explore on our own.
We really got a taste for this caving stuff, so the following day we once again hired
bikes and set off for two other caves in the area. This time however we went prepared - we all bought head torches from a local shop so that we could do some proper exploring! The first cave we went to was called Tham Chang. This cave is the largest and most famous cave in the area. It was used as a bomb shelter in the war, and is by far the most visited, therefore the most easily accessible. You can reach it via a steep staircase set into the side of the mountain.
Unfortunately the main cave was closed for lunch and we had an hour or so to kill. We had previously heard that there is a smaller cave at the foot of the mountain only accessible via water so we decided to find it. We donned our head torches, got into the bloody freezing freshwater stream that filters down through the mountain and winced as our testicles swiftly shot up into our stomachs! After the initial shock, the water really was lovely. It was so clear, and a beautiful deep blue colour due to the rocks below. We all switched on the torches and began the
Bridge to Island Bar
Takes a lot of concentration! tiring swim against the current into the pitch black network of tunnels. We made our way in about 60-odd metres, by which time you could not see your hand in front of your face without the torches. If they had run out of battery, or stopped working for any reason, we would have been in a right pickle. Later on we realised that this was a very real possibility indeed! (see picture).
Once back on dry land, we bought our ticket for the main cave and began our ascent (I was quite annoyed at the sign above the ticket booth - see attached picture - where foreigners are charged more than locals. If a company put a sign like that up in England they would be sued before you could say the word ‘discrimination’!). The cave is electrically lit, but by no means as badly as the ‘Disco Cave’ back in Halong Bay. I must admit there were a few cheesey lights, but nowhere near on the same scale! The cave itself is enormous, it just goes on and on for miles into the side of the mountain. To our delight, after a while the artificial lights ended, but
the cave continued so we flicked on the head torches and went searching for buried treasure gaaarrr! Again, we had a great time exploring on our own, until our progress was stopped by a gate with a big sign telling us how dangerous it was to carry on. This obviously aroused our curiosity, but still regaining some rational thought we decided that we would all probably end up dead, so made our way back to the bikes.
The previous day, on our way to Phoukham we passed a very intriguing sign for another cave. The sign read that inside there was big fish, water for a shower, bats, and best of all, ‘something strange to show’. How could we resist a description like that? I am unsure of the exact name of the cave, so for ease of reference I’ll call it the Strange Cave. After a reasonably long, but very picturesque walk through rice paddys, overgrown paths and across streams, we arrived at the foot of a tough climb to the entrance. The climb was about as high as Phoukham, however added to the slippery wet rocks underfoot was the danger of finding grip and planting your hand
Chicken Fighting 1
Let the battle commence! on top of one of the many poisonous caterpillars or spiders that we often came across. Once at the entrance, the views out across the rice paddys were superb. We made our way inside and walked for around 100 metres across a bamboo bridge right to the end of the tunnel, only we found no big fish, saw no bats, didn’t hear one drop of ‘water for a shower’ and the only thing that was slightly out of the ordinary was a load of graffiti written on the white stone walls using the dark red mud, accompanied by the hand print of the author. I felt like demanding my money back!! We added our names to the collection (well it would have been rude not to!), left the cave and spent a minute preparing ourselves for the dodgy climb back down to the ground. Once back at the bikes, we paid another visit to the Phoukham Lagoon to cool off, then returned to the village for a well deserved curry.
The past 2 weeks have been the best 2 weeks so far this trip. It is hard to sum up Vang Vieng. It’s chilled out, but there’s always a
Chicken Fighting 2
It was a long and gruesome fight! party, it’s friendly but totally insane, it’s cheap but expensive and it’s totally unspoilt and retains its character, but caters very well for the western backpacker. I think they’ve got it just right here. Any less built up and it maybe a little too remote, however any more built up and the charm may be lost. When travelling through Laos it would be a crime to miss this place. It was an excellent break from the pandemonium of Vietnam and we met some of the most weird and wonderful characters ever. Great times well spent.
By this time we had spent 2 weeks at Vang Vieng doing not much at all really. We decided that this was a long enough chill out period after Vietnam and agreed to catch a bus to Phonsavan the following day. The reason for visiting Phonsavan is to see one of Laos’ great mysteries - The Plain of Jars.
P.S. We bought a waterproof disposable camera and took a load of tubing pictures, however we are yet to find a shop that will transfer the negatives to disc, therefore apologies, but i'm gonna have to add them at a later date.
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Suze
non-member comment
Watch those drains
I fell into one in India. Gruesome. I think I scrubbed my foot with luke-warm water (hot water being of course out of the question in Inja) about 37,241 times. I still shudder to think of it. Also I'm made up to see the fame about chicken fighting is spreading! The inventors, Jamie and Jason, are legends in their own lifetime. How soon before it's on tv? Hope you're well - snogs to all the gang Suze in cold Oz x