Vang Vieng; Bliss, ballons and barf.

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Yay I am so pleased to be up and out for 7am, NOT… We walk our bags down into town and find a coffee shop to congregate in. Happy moment as I find an actual decaffeinated latte and have this with a delicious iced cinnamon bun – healthy breakfast right?! Maybe not, but belly blissful though…

The minibus sets off on our journey towards Vang Vieng and motors up and around the mountain roads, well again I say roads but these were maybe once roads, however they are now conjoined stony pot holes the size of moon craters. We work along the windy roads up and down the mountains where road work crews are pummelling stone into the holes, in places quite literally rebuilding sections of the road with no traffic lights or barriers. They just pull out in front of you without warning in their JCB type machinery. All sounds ok right, however this is on mountain roads where the edges are mostly free falls into a very steep descent and as such one I would not like to be party to our minibus tumbling downwards like that scene from misery… Scary and tense in certain moments would be highly descriptive, just don’t look out the window Jason, just don’t look. Ignorance is sometimes bliss and now is one of those moments…

Today we are joined by a new crazy stray hop-on here and a young girl that seems like she is in a bit of a confused pickle, with her plastic cellophane bag of beers, treats, prescription(ish) drugs and an air of hilarious kooky around her… I do have to chuckle at the randomness of traveling, even funnier thing is I think she is from Oxford but in this state I avoid conversation as she is more interested in being a ladette with the guys at the back of the bus drinking in the morning! Oh well, I did say Profiter earlier in my blog and I guess this is her profiter so I try not to judge, although you know when someone is so damn clumsy, every motion is like car crash TV.

We stop half way at the top of the mountain for a toilet break, snacks and to admire the view. The car park is atop one of the many mountain and there is a flat stony piece that looks out across the widest vista yet. Mountains here look like ripples in a pond as they cascade in succession behind one another towards the edge of world, well at least as far as your eyes can see…

We carry on our crazy bus journey through the mountains, dodging road works, pot holes, oncoming bigger buses on the bends and taking in the view. Here the banana trees seem to grow like cow parsley and elderflower plants back home. As we move forwards into the country the rock formations seem to change from the granite into a limestone that has the appearance of melted bones and teeth. In the distance the green and diffused appearing mountains appear as if they are painted in pastel colours as the days haze acts like a faint mist to diffuse the normally vibrant colours. As we drive down the last portion of our journey the mountains are so high they appear out my window to reach all the way to the sky in giant walls of trees and foliage. I guess there are many worse views I could be experiencing right now and enjoy the scrolling view past my window.

We arrive at Vang Vieng, a small market town that we are told is a crazy party town. Yet in the day it just looks like a rundown large village, maybe appearances are going to be deceptive here…. We check into our guest house and decide to go tubing down the river, I mean what better way is there to spend a hot day that floating down a 5km stretch of river in an inflated rubber ring…

Quick pit stop to grab a BBQ baguette followed by a tuk-tuk truck to the start of our river tubing experience, you got to love the converted open back trucks that almost resemble knackered old safari vehicles with mini cages on the back. We all get into our rubber rings, the kind of ring that looks like you went on holiday with your nan and your gramp got an old car inner tyre liner from 30 years ago, complete with a 3 inch inflation valve that seems to poke up right in the wrong (or right) area inside the ring… To start with the river is cold and shallow as it ripples over fairly sharp cobble stones to the edges, we plonk our arses down into the centre of the rings and shuffle the rings and our rings into deeper water, where the current starts to push us upstream.

This is blissful. The hot Laos sun beating down through a cloudless sky, the slow river gently flows through the lush Laos mountains, meadows and tree laden river banks. What could be a more peaceful few hours than relaxing as the river current eases you slowly forwards as you meander downstream like a frog laid on a warm lily pad. Along the way there are river bars but we decide to carry on forwards sober, well I say that but mainly because at that point the current was going quite strong and we didn’t all stop in time so we carried onwards. This feels like freedom here, no time constraint (well except the setting sun), no pressure, no having to think about what you’re doing (except dodging the rocks that sometimes lay under the surface). The river carries you forward and keeps your cool as your legs, arms and butt are submerged into the fresh waters as the sun beams down.
A great time to do gentle mini meditations as you lay back, allowing the water and ring to carry your weight and let the landscape and sky parallaxy scroll by. I concentrate on the inhalation and exhalation from my nose as I allow my mind thoughts to settle like specks of snow in a snow globe. Allowing my mind to experience clarity and peace within it as my thoughts no longer stick to my consciousness like hair to a static balloon, instead they flow like smoke through a keyhole and I peacefully ride the moment like blown dandelion seeds in the warm breeze. All I am right now is a calm mind experiencing the epic mountains and water movie reel that my eyes are plugged into. There are moments where you lose conscious awareness of yourself and just become part of the nature around you, no amount of meditating in the Oxford classes felt quite like this… It’s like meditation on steroids when you experience soothing mind calm in such a tranquil, undisturbed and mesmeric terrain.

Such a lovely time relaxing, having fun and being silly with the girls on the river. The only negative here is that the river weeds look like floating cow turds, so a good amount of time was spent with the girls and I squirming and splashing these floating river turds away from ourselves, or towards each other which proved to be quite the game for me to see if I could get it to unsuspectingly touch home, which being the big child I am was the funniest thing to achieve in the water… I’m sure the girls were not quite as amused as I was by this game!

Towards the end though we were starting to get old man wrinkly and as the sun was making its descent to sleep the temperature is starting to drop. Thankfully we reached the end just as the sun dropped behind the mountains but not yet setting to the ground level, so it wasn’t dark, just covering the landscape in small shadowed areas.

After taking our rings back to get our deposit we go back to the guest house to get showered and changed for the evening. Tonight we plan to hit the town and experience the promised great nightlife. I just saw a happy pizza and happy shake café/restaurant, if I hadn’t seen the small happy pizza advert, I would of assumed this was a Disney massage parlour. I believe these are a blend of marijuana herbs and hallucinogenic mushrooms – something that I am 100% sure that I will be avoiding, the last thing I need out here is to freak out having some fucked up mushroom trip when I least expect it… No thank-you, the nearest hospital is a fair journey away, so not the best place to get in trouble in out here… I think I will stick to a few drinks.

Its evening and time to hit the town and had a quick dinner. Our tour leader tells us about the two main bars that have a happy hour until 11, where they line up free shots on the bar. Not just one free shot, but a bar top full of shots… hmm this sounds interesting and of course, being the travel budgeters that we are were all keen to take full advantage of this.
We make our way to the bar area and into the pub/makeshift club (converted shed and pallet dance floor arrangement that somehow strangely resembles a pub/club at night with a few strategically placed strung lights lol). They had said that Vang Vieng was a haven for Koreans and I thought they were joking, how could a random small town in the middle of Laos be the Korean mecca?! Well it was only when we got in the bar that I could see that they were not joking. What strikes me as funny is, like the UK we have regional dialect variances but pretty much our external aesthetics remain similar (broad stroke stereotyping in a non-cosmopolitan sociology mode), here in South East Asia language changes but the external aesthetics of faces differs a little bit, not by a great degree but you can see differences in face shapes from country to country somehow… I wonder how this is even possible, is it because people tend to procreate with their own fellow country folk and create a facial sub set or somehow the environment creates certain features… It’s hard to explain but Korean, Chinese, Thai, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnamese do have a different in features, as does UK, Eastern European, Spanish, Greek and Italian etc… Sorry, I now I strayed off point there, but it’s one of those thoughts that randomly zooms through my brain.

Anyway, we are all now in the pub and ambling our way towards the bar, through throngs of Koreans, that or Korean looking Laosers (Verb’ige as I’m not quite sure how to define a Laos national in the plural, I don’t mean to make it look like loser or some kind of ear wig creatures….) to the bar.

Yes, we can see all of these glasses lined up and it’s like a game of hungry hippos as we grab to get our first freebie shot. Sounds great, until that shit hit my tongue and the back of my throat. This free shot is friggin whiskey, WHISKEY!!!! The most disgusting boozy beverage to make it out of distillation, bleurgh. Whiskey is the food of true alcoholics and to me the most nasty thing outside of treading in a freshly laid dog poo with no shoes and socks on… No, thank-you, I think I will pay for my drinks. I am not that hard up that I have to force this venom into my veins for the craic of an evening, so I order vodka based drinks… We all wonder through the make shift dance area (what looks like stacked pallets and boarding – the floor literally bows and bounces here!) and find seating at a long table so we are all able to sit together. Zoe, the aussie or Canadian girl (how bad I can’t remember her nationality, I think it was Canadian) that hopped on today is starting to look a bit ropey to my left. Becoming incoherent, swaying and holding her head between her legs. I strategically keep her pivoted away from me so I don’t get any puke splash back…

This place sells those laughing gas balloons and the girls are adamant they are going to break their balloon virginity tonight and do their best job to convince me to have a bash. I am strong willed and opt out for the first few rounds. Although watching them all inhale the laughing gas balloons whist taking slow motion footage was hilarious, when you play back the clip you can see the exact moment that the laughing gas kicks in and you can see the biggest beaming grin appear on their faces, followed by pissing themselves laughing at each other. This stuff must be addictive as they set about another two balloons. Finally they are able to nag me into trying one, mind you I did my google research on side effects just to make sure it’s not that nasty (being the old fart and ex recreational party drug user I was) and I give it a go.

We sit there all holding our balloons and you don’t just inhale the balloon. You are meant to treat the balloon like a panic attack bag. You inhale and exhale into the balloon several times until all of the gas is absorbed and you go light headed. Light and sounds around me start to reverberate into a metallic sensation with a feeling of De Ja Vue, I can feel the positive energy of the moment somehow and it sets a chain reaction of cascading laughter off between us all. The experience is ineffable to explain in words, hasten to say it was a fleeting 10 second moment of childish laughter and a uniquely personal experience to share with the group.

So now we are all quite tipsy and euphoric from the balloons, having a great time until Zoe barfs her guts up between her legs. Thankfully I manage to kick my left leg up fast enough that her days calorie intake didn’t become one with my open toe footwear and leg… She then gets up and staggers away home, we offered help but she was adamant she was doing this on her own. That’s one man down and the rest of us still standing… Well maybe less standing and more sitting/buffooning lol. After a great night it’s time for the walk home after grabbing a quick fresh savoury pancake from one of the stalls located outside the pub and we all stagger back to the Guest house.

This is a strange sort of guest house in the sense that you have to go down an alley to reach our part of the guest house, then there is an open veranda style piece with a large wooden carved table, chairs and benches around the area. Then to the rear right is a reception desk with stairs leading up to its side and a corridor to the adjacent left. I have never seen an al fresco hotel reception quite like this one… What makes it funnier is that when we get back to the guest house we see what looks like a big baby play pen behind the desk. You know the kind of pop up play pens that looks like a large plastic cube, made of that closely knitted fish net stocking type material. Anyway, random noises are coming from it as we sit chatting at the table, until we realise it’s some old man asleep in it, I guess that’s one way to say you have a 24 hour reception by having a cot bed made up there… A bit pointless in any case because the guys have lost their second set of keys and have to wake him up to try and let them into their room, when all he grunts is to go speak to the people at the front part of the guest house… Then he gets all jimmy cranky and starts telling us to sleep now. I get a little eggy, because feck off telling me when to go to sleep. Just because Victor Meldrew has to sleep outside in a friggin play pen and can’t sleep through people chatting in the reception area, doesn’t constitute telling us to go to bed. I mean, what is this! Is this middle school excursions where the teacher tells you its bed time – No, so he can take the stick out of his arse and sniff it a while for all I care… lol

Rant over, now being the polite bitches we are we all walk down the corridor to bed. I am sharing with Cleo and when we get into our room there are two massive issues. First is the cockroach the size of a curly wurly on the wall and second is the Korean karaoke bar that is as loud in our room as I imagine it to be in the bar where they are singing…
I try to unsuccessfully catch the cockroach and it decides to vanish under my bed in a comedy moment quite like where the wyle coyote tries to catch the road runner . I can’t quite get the bed up so Cleo goes to get Sandy to help me, but alas, when we lift the bed there is no cockroach. Cleo now opts for relocating herself into one of the other guys rooms because it freaked her out. I, on the other hand wasn’t that phased by it. I mean, I know they are grim creepy crawlies, however they pose no threat of biting, piercing, punching or burrowing into my skin so, I am ok with this being in my vicinity! Now all I have to deal with is the bloody Korean karaoke bar outside my room, let’s just say it’s a good job I have amazing ear plugs or I would be taking a shit in the miserable old fuckers cot for making me come to bed early and have to endure the noise that sounds like the slow strangulation of cats… I am thankful for the anaesthetic qualities of booze and the serenity ear plugs provide.

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