Vang Vieng

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Yowza. Currently in Vang Vieng after an atrocious 5 hour bus ride from Luang Prabang. Vang Vieng... what to say about this place... I can see why this place has a love/hate relationship with visitors. Beautiful place... but I can see bad bad things happening here if stayed in for too long. Are there rules here? Nope. Now we read in our Lonely Planet tour books that this is a "If ordering opium shakes at the local bar and watching reruns of Friends is your thing, Vang Vieng is the place to be." They were not kidding. Every restraunt here has a lounge area, and they are in fact watching reruns of Friends in almost every single one of them. Or Family Guy. We got here and the first day thought to ourselves... 'nahhh' although this town is ridden with young tourists looking for a fun town to get wasted in and go tubing down the river, we hadn't really seen anything to indicate that this town was full of drugs. Until yesterday. We went floating down the river (it seems to be the thing to do if you're in this town). Brought a few beers and stopped at a couple of the many bars along the float. The last bar we went to, the bartender nonchalantly pulls out bags of mushrooms, weed, and YES.. OPIUM. "What kind of shake would you like?" Whoa buddy, too friendly too fast. Keep in mind drugs are in FACT illegal here in Laos. But obviously certain rules are not enforced.
And now... we've been noticing the 'special' sides to menus. And now we know why people appear to be melted into the chairs (which are conveniently designed for being able to pass out in) and watching reruns of friends. It's kind of creepy.

Regardless, It's gorgeous here. The scenery is like a backdrop of awesome limestone cliffs behind the town. Very picturesque.

We went spelunking and kayaking today. That was some hardcore caving. The water levels were pretty high because it's the rainy season here. Things got a little messy and we were promised bats. But no bats. Shucks. Afterwards we went kayaking down the river which again was gorgeous. As for tomorrow I think mopeds are in our future...

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Comments

[sokdee]

wow....i will take Vang Vieng trip, the end of this month......