Blogs from Vang Vieng, West, Laos, Asia - page 20

Vang Vien is most famous for its ‘Tubing’, a boozy activity that involves floating on a tractor tire inner-tub, letting the current take you down river, then you get fished in with a rope by bars along the way. The bars have music played at speaker destroying volume and death defying slides, zip lines and swings (all hand built from bamboo!) for the drunkern backpackers to enjoy. Apparently at least one person a year dies tubing (usually due to excess alcohol), we later found out that someone died not long after we left! Alcohol is the main factor for accidents and for the party animal westerners, there are free shots in each bar and ‘Bucket Cocktails’ containing more alcohol than a George Best breakfast. Being sensible folk (and Carla being a bit sick) us and our ... read more

It is a complex, long winded and messy process that makes a tiny village into a travel mecca. Sometimes it destroys whatever was nice about the destination and other times it is the best thing to happen to the locals since whatever revolution was last. Vang Vieng is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. At first glance one may look at the crowds of drunk tourists and immediately declare the town a hell hole but here i think the locals really get a kick out of it. As for the town itself, there are 100 guests houses but everything is clustered in with local homes, schools and livestock. For the most part those who live here aren't displaced by their towns' popularity on the tourist trail. Vang Vieng has LOADS of attractions, piles of charm ... read more

Vang Vieng Happy to be on the move again, this time in a small minivan, we set the Ipod to mellow and watched the beautiful jungle scenery roll by, taking us to land of jungle bars and river fun. The only interruption to our otherwise relaxing ride was a small flooded section , where paddy and road were indistinguishable and we soaked some local boys on bikes...sorry. We arrived late afternoon and in the fading light managed to find one of our best rooms of the trip. Vang Vieng in a small town right on the banks of the river, having exhausted expensive, or noisy sleeping options we decided to push our exploration a little further afield.. Crossing a rather homemade wooden bridge we found ourselves on a small island right in the middle of the ... read more

Arriving in Vang Vieng was a relief after a journey that took us through the mountains of Laos, with the odd obstruction ranging from children to buffalo to goats and pigs, often chilling in the middle of the road. After finding some where to stay we soon found some where to eat over looking the river. The next day was tubing day, we had a leisurely morning drinking pineapple shakes (our new fave drink) and then collected our tubes. Tubing involved taking a tuk tuk to a point 3 km up the river from town and then getting into the river with your rubber ring (tube) then floating back to town, whilst having many opportunities to stop of at one of the many bars/huts that lined the river. As soon as we had been dropped of ... read more

Monday, 02/01/10 The plan for this day: Get up at 8:30am. Have breakfast then rent bikes and cycle to Poukhem Cave before the hot part of the day. What really happened: We got up at 8:30am but didn’t leave the guesthouse until 9:30am. It was already really hot outside. We went to Z bar again for breakfast (and to look at the cute waiters) then walked over to the bike rental place across the street. Neither of us had our passports on us or the US$200 for a deposit required if no passport was present so we trudged back to the hostel around 11am. We were so full of muesli and eggs that we laid down and crashed for a couple of hours. We went back out, rented the bikes, and set out. I still wasn’t ... read more