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Published: March 1st 2010
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Tube Tuk-tuk
The tuk-tuk gets loaded with people, the roof gets loaded with tubes for the short journey to the launch point.Vang Vieng...the capital of tubing! Tubing is basically floating down the river in a giant truck inner tube watching the scenery as you float by... or stopping at one of the many bars en-route for refreshments.
At first glance there doesn’t appear to be much else to this town, unless you like to watch hours of ‘Friends’ or ‘Family Guy’ in one of the many TV bars. However, once you go through the town to the river you see the spectacular setting which has made this place a famous destination... tubing or not. The limestone formations that surround the river are spectacular and provide a stunning vista when dining in one of the many restaurants that overlooks the river.
But we should get back to the tubing as I’m sure that’s what most people are eager to know about! After renting our tube for 55,000 kip (US$6.5) plus 60,000 kip (US$7) deposit from the town (slightly more than the US$2 mentioned in Lonely Planet), we jumped onto a tuk-tuk loaded with people inside and our tubes on the roof. At the starting point 3km upstream we found the first bar could be accessed without even getting wet. It was
The Start
The view from Bar One down to the other bars... a huge setup with a multilevel platform overlooking the river. We had a beer and watched people swing from a huge rope swing (around 15 metres high) whilst doing flips or flops (we saw some painful ones at that!). Daniel couldn’t contain his excitement and whilst Natalie watched nervously, Dan climbed the ladder and swung, expertly landing with a splash into the river.
More swings, more bars and beer, a slide, some shots, laughs with people we met along the way, and a little tubing in between and suddenly it was starting to get dark. Off we bobbed in a group thinking Vang Vieng would be a short distance around the next bend. But after more darkness there was still no sign of lights or the sound of the bars which mark the finishing point. A good hour later we saw some lights and gladly jumped out only to find it was too early so we had to walk barefoot over gravel to the tubing office (Natalie would like to thank the bloke who lent her his flip-flops!). We finally returned our tubes, minus a few thousand kip for late return (20,000) and wondered where it went so wrong?...
Bar One
Our first beer of the day. We discovered afterwards that most people just stay at the bars till dark and then pay for a tuk-tuk back to the town. Others didn’t even bother with tubes and just walked or swam between bars saving themselves the cost of tube rental and late fee!
There is so much more to Vang Vieng than tubing. The countryside is stunning and many traditional villages and industries still thrive without the tourist intrusion (although charging 10,000 kip to walk up a hill or to see a cave seems to supplement income). We hired some bikes and set off into the countryside to investigate some caves and to climb one of the granite hills to see the view. The cave we visited was pretty big and we needed to climb small ladders and over rocks to get in deep, with only our weak torch beams it was eerie. The walk up the hill was a challenge with the heat (and a mild hangover) but the view was great.
We almost needed to pay a quick visit to the local hospital as Dan decided to demonstrate his biking skills with a skid down a gravel road; unfortunately the brakes were
Bar One
View of the swing and crowd.
connected differently and instead of a rear brake sliding skid he ended up over the handle bars resulting in a few bruises, scratches, and a dented pride ;-). This didn’t stop him doing it properly (a ‘fully sick sideways skid’ at that) once he established the correct brake.
The next morning we boarded the bus for the windy (and bumpy) 6 hour ride to Luang Prabang.
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