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Published: November 27th 2007
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Vang Vieng is a small town in the mountains in Laos, which has basically been overrun by Farang (westerners). Some people come here and really hate it for that very reason, as they see it as a bit of a paradise lost, however for me it will always be a special place, as you can walk for 15 minutes and leave all the tourists behind and come across the friendliest, most welcoming people and see the most stunning scenery!!
It is a bit of a strange place though with lots of bars playing reruns of Friends all day (they have strange ideas about what us westerners want!! Although watching Friends is quite comforting if you're feeling a bit homesick). Every menu had more Western options than Laos options, in fact it was quite hard to find proper Laos food. Also every restaurant seemed to have a 'happy menu' - this is where you can add weed, mushrooms and even opium to your food and drink. Don't worry mum, I didn't indulge in any of the 'happy' food and drink as one of my friends had a mushroom pizza and was ill, so it didn't sound like a very 'happy' experience
to me!!!
So all in all, the actual town of Vang Vieng is probably the least Laos place I've ever been. However it is not without its charms. With all those gorgeous mountains as the backdrop and a pretty river running through it, it has become a bit of an adventure destination with activities such as climbing, trekking, caving, kayaking and cycling all on offer. However the main draw is the tubing, which has become almost infamous on the South East Asia backpacking circuit. This is when you hire a big inner tube and get dropped 3km's upriver and just float back to Vang Vieng. This alone would be a fun way to spend the day, just chilling, watching the beautiful scenery float by. However the Laos people have made it a lot more fun, by setting up bars along the way with rope swings at each bar, so you can jump into the water. As you go further down the river, the rope swings seem to get higher and higher. The bars also sell lots of BeerLao and buckets (this is a sandcastle bucket full of whisky, redbull and a soft drink like Sprite) and give you free
shots of Lao Lao (the local moonshine). As you can imagine this combination means almost everyone gets enough dutch courage to jump of the rope swings, although I'm sure it makes it a lot more dangerous!!
Me and Kim decided to go tubing on our first day in Vang Vieng and it was great fun. I think I had my first Lao Lao shot at 10am, so as you can imagine it got messy!! Kim was very daring and jumped off every single rope swing, in fact she was the first person to do it in some bars!! I climbed up ready to jump off, but it all started spinning - I think me and heights really don't get on, so I wimped out. I so wish I'd jumped now, but oh well. The day was fantastic though, we made lots of new friends and saw some of the people we'd met on the slow boat, yet again. Laos has such a well worn route through it that you just bump into all the same people over and over again, its fantastic!! It meant whenever we got to a new destination, we already had friends there!! We decided to
call it a day at about 4pm as we didn't want to be on the tube after dark and I'm really glad we did. It sounds like it just got messier and messier - not sure it would have been safe to float back any drunker!! On our way back a herd of water buffalo started walking across the river and we had to paddle really hard not to float into them!!!
The next day I just chilled out for the day, something I rarely do and it was really nice to just sit and do nothing. However by the next day I was itching to explore the area a bit. Kim wanted to stay in Vang Vieng and sunbathe, so I set off by myself to find a place called Blue Lagoon, which was apparently 7km away. I was going to hire a bike, but I decided to walk in the end, so that I could really take in the scenery. I'm really glad that I did though as it really gave me more chance to interact with the local people. Within about 5-10 minutes of walking, it was like I was miles away from Vang Vieng town.
There were local villages with people just going about their every day lives and lots of children shouting Sabaidee (hello) to me. One young boy came over and asked me my name - I think he was practising his English on me, so I talked to him for a bit and then lots of children kept coming over to me, some of them wanted to high five me others just giggled at me. It was fantastic!!
I finally reached the Blue Lagoon about 2 hours later and it was beautiful!! It was like the perfect swimming pool, however I only realised when I got there that I didn't have my bikini bottoms on, so I had to make do with just dangling my feet in the water. There was a cave there called Poukham cave, which is why most people go there, however I wimped out again and didn't explore the cave, as I'd convinced myself that a huge spider would jump on me. I hope my fear of spiders goes away on this trip!! It really does stop me doing lots of really exciting things!!
So overall I had a fantastic three days in Vang Vieng and
would thoroughly recommend it. There really is something there for everyone, so even if you hate the 'happy menus' and the Friends bars there is still lots of stunning scenery to explore!!!
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