Celebrating a year of travels tubing in Vang Vieng

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Day 365: Monday 29th June - Back on the backpacker trail in Vang Vieng

Today is going to be a day doing little. After spending 33 hours on buses and sawngthaew’s the last 4 days I need to recharge my batteries. Walking around Vang Vieng in the morning I am not sure this is the ideal place to do it. Vang Vieng has become THE backpacker's pit stop in Laos, and walking down the main street I’ve seen far more westerners than locals. It feels like a mini Khao San Road and is far too westernised evidenced by the restaurant menus serving largely western food, a proliferation of expensive internet cafes, numerous TV bars showing little else apart from re-runs of Friends or Family Guy and many guesthouses which must be doing each other out of business. This is a scruffy town that caters solely for tourists and as such has a spoiled atmosphere. Thankfully I’ve seen the real Laos, but I wonder have many of the tourists here?

I have a message from Mike and Trudi saying they left Vang Vieng a few days ago as there was nothing to detain them here after they’d been tubing - THE activity in Vang Vieng. It’s a shame we couldn’t go tubing together but I can totally understand why they moved on from here. I change guesthouses, finally find an ATM that is working (lucky as I’m down to my last few thousand kip) and get my laundry done at my old guesthouse which must have the most sensitive (read rigged) scales in Laos (5 kilos - never in the world, maybe 3 at the most). That and taking advantage of the free Wi-fi at my guesthouse is about the sum of an uneventful day.

I bump into Ho-Yun and Ross in the evening. They’re volunteering up at the organic farm and have come into town to get some money. I sit and talk with them whilst they have dinner and we lament at all the youngsters stumbling around the streets drunk after a day’s tubing. What must the locals think? Vang Vieng feels like Blackpool or Benidorm rather than somewhere in Laos and I can’t get excited about tubing tomorrow surrounded by a load of 18-22 year olds who are all trying to see who can get the most drunk and do the most outlandish things. It may have been different if I was doing it with friends, but I won’t be. I will be making new friends, probably the same type of people that today I just want to avoid. Tomorrow’s another day, I hope I’ll enjoy it, I’m sure I will otherwise Vang Vieng will have been the only place in Laos that I regretted stopping at.

Day 366: Tuesday 30th June - Celebrating a year of travels by tubing down the Nam Song

Today is a year since I left the UK. A year of travels, so many happy memories, too many good times to mention, the best experience of my life. Looking back on all the things I’ve done this past year would take a long, long time - it feels like I’ve done that much - but the highlights have been South America, New Zealand and my time in Laos to date, and probably in that order. It feels remiss to summarise a year in this fashion but to go into more depth would take more words than I can be bothered to write at this time.

When I return from tubing I read over a letter my mum gave me when I left the UK and a ‘passport’ containing well wishes from by closest friends. I treasure both dearly. I also read the first few days of my diary of my travels. It feels an eternity ago, easily a year, probably more. I’m sure this is because I’ve packed so much into the last year. I don’t feel I’ve changed much in the last year - when you get to 31 you’re pretty much the person you are, but those closest to you are always the best judge at that. What has changed since those first tentative steps in Mexico is that I’m so much more confident in travelling than I was then. I was apprehensive then (as well as excited) about the uncertain adventures and times that lay ahead. A year on, I’ve seen and experienced most of what travelling solo entails and it is no longer a step into the unknown. However, neither is it too familiar. Each new place, each new country brings with it new challenges, meeting new people and adjusting to a new culture. There are many new experiences ahead and I look forward to my second year of travels.

I celebrate a year of travelling by enjoying that very English institution -an English Breakfast!! It has been raining heavily since I awoke and I look out wondering if it will clear this afternoon when I go tubing. Around noon the rain stops but the skies remain overcast for the rest of the day. In the early afternoon, I make my way to the tubing rental place armed with 2 dry bags containing money and camera and then rent a third - you can never be too safe!!! In town, I bump into Ross and Ho-Yun and arrange to meet them later this evening for a few drinks. A sawngthaew drives about ten of us a few kilometres north of the town to the start of the tubing.

Around a dozen bars line the river between the start of the tubing run and Vang Vieng. Each bar pumps out the tunes, some offer free shots of spirits, otherwise Beer Lao is readily available albeit at inflated prices. Most of the bars have rope swings over the river (which I don’t get involved with) and one has a water slide (which is loads of fun). I stop at three of the bars on the way down to Vang Vieng, taking about four hours. The scenery is spectacular - limestone cliffs rise vertically next to the river but otherwise it is a disappointment. In a year of travelling I can’t think of too many places I’ve been to or experiences I’ve had that have been ‘overrated’ but tubing in Vang Vieng falls into that category. The only other place that springs to mind is Bali - another destination that people rave on about but the reality is somewhat different.

Tubing down the Nam Song River is for many travellers the highlight of Laos. To them this is what Laos is all about. Thankfully I’ve seen enough of the country already to know that this is not the real Laos - the real Laos is so much better. Rather, this is Benidorm, Ibiza or any other party resort on the Mediterranean transported to a river in Southeast Asia. The people I meet tubing - and no disrespect to them as they were all nice enough people - were all in the 18-22 bracket, young people looking to have a good time and get drunk. The majority also seemed to be British - is this our culture? No wonder we’re unpopular in some of the countries we visit.

Some people do multiple days down the river, others boast of having done 100+ days of tubing. For me, one day floating down a dirty river enjoying a few beers is enough. Two days in this scruffy town is more than enough. I look forward to moving on to Vientiane. As for Vang Vieng, if your idea of an ideal night involves scoffing western food to the background of never-ending Friends episodes, then you're going to absolutely love this place. For many others though, including me, this is a circus-like example of tourism at its worst. If you're looking for some Lao culture, Vang Vieng isn't the place to find it.

Day 367: Wednesday 1st July - Back to the real Laos

I catch a local bus to Vientiane - 4 hours south - at midday. This is back to the Laos I love - an overcrowded bus too full with both people and cargo which stops at every ramshackle village on the way. This journey is one of the less spectacular ones scenery wise, so I use it as an opportunity to try and catch up on some sleep. When I get off the bus I notice that my bag smells like a farmyard. I’ve been smelling this fresh, manure like smell since the bus journey to Vang Vieng. I hate to think what my bag must have being lying next to for that journey!!!

The bus journey was back to the real Laos but my first impressions of the capital, Vientiane are that it isn’t the same Laos I’ve come to love. A Saamlaew (like a Tuk-Tuk) driver wants 20,000 kip (£1.50) to take me the short distance into town. The ‘real’ price is more like 10,000 kip, and this is the first time I can recall in Laos that I’ve had to bargain to get the price lower. The price offered is usually ‘the price’. Bloody tuk-tuk mafia!!! After agreeing to a price half his original offer, he proceeds to lead me a merry dance through Vientiane. The guesthouse I asked him to take me to is shut for renovation - genuinely although it does have the sound of a scam. He then takes me to two guesthouses where he’s clearly on a commission which are a bit out of the way, and either overpriced or stink or cigarette smoke. I’ve lost my patience, give him the money and set out on foot to find a guesthouse more to my liking.

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