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Published: March 15th 2009
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Vang Vieng in northern Laos, has turned into a very busy little backpacker town over the last few years. Swarms of young backpackers turn up on buses every day to do just one thing and one thing only.... and no, its not caving, kayaking or exploring the local areas (which are beautiful I might add), instead its TUBING!
Now when I say tubing down the river this isn't any ordinary type of tubing either. This type of tubing involves copious amounts of alcohol, all the drugs you can imagine (including opium), some of the highest rope swings you have ever seen in your life and a blatant disregard for personal safety. In fact this type of tubing has become a right of passage for most backpackers in their 20's. You can now see why they all like it, now where else in the world would you or could you get away with this sort of thing. The other thing Vang Vieng has to offer all the rope swing crazy backpackers once the novelty of the tubing wears of is the TV Bars. You'll find the main street of Vang Vieng is lined with TV's bars all playing re-runs of Friends
and Prison Break etc. People sit there literally for days watching re-runs and the world go by. I got sucked in there one afternoon for about 5 hours.. I can see the addiction of it all... once you sit down.. there’s now reason to leave..
Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying all this is wrong and that I don't like Vang Vieng I just think the focus on Vang Vieng has become a little too much weighted on the tubing. The reason I can say this is I spent a couple of days exploring Vang Vieng and the local area and trust me it has a lot of other things to offer if you can stay sober for long enough. In fact I was lucky enough to also meet this girl called Carla in a chance meeting (she is an actress from England and loads of fun) on my first day there and we hit it off really well. So much so, we having now been travelling together now for the last week or so.
Basically we explored the local area together and had a blast, one day on a motor bike and another on an
organised canoe trip with a local tour company. We got to see caves (some up to 2km long underground) little monk villages, lagoons and heaps of great mountains. The highlights included a great lunch one day on the river whilst eating freshly cooked meet out of a palm leaf and also trying to ride back into town late one night on a bike on one of the roughest roads I have ever been on.. fingers were crossed the whole way back.. trust me!
Anyway after 4 great days in Vang Vieng we decided it was time to leave the little party town and head south to Vientiane which is now the capital of Laos.
Stay tuned for more updates.
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