Where Friends Abounds

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In Vang Vieng I saw death in a young man's eyes and the image is etched in my memory permanently.

We were excited to arrive in this hip city, overrun with young people out for tubing and drinking. This was a party town, but it was also a town of unparalleled natural beauty. We got off the bus, along with Hans and Marion from the Netherlands,who we had been travelling with since the slow boat to Luang Prabang. We were just dropped at the side of the highway, but we could see the town across a large gravel piece of land, which we determined to be the old airstrip.

We walked through a rather large mud puddle, and found the town, literally teeming with guesthouses and restaurants. Peter and I wound our way toward the river and found a place called Grandview Guesthouse. For 120,000 Kip we could have a room with a balcony overlooking the river. That was a great deal for us, because the room was clean and came with air conditioning as well. The mountain karsts across the river were stunningly gorgeous and we felt we had found the perfect place.

After an early dinner and a few drinks, we sat out on our balcony and just took in the beauty of the place. The river was pretty fast flowing, but young Laos boys navigated the short distance across the island with relative ease. They knew to start a ways upriver from where they wanted to end up. The boys could not have been older than eight or ten years old.

The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast. There were so many places to choose from it was harder to decide where to eat than what to choose from the menu. We were more than amused that in virtually every restaurant there were numerous large screen T.V.s hanging from the ceiling playing continuous episodes of Friends.

After breakfast we just walked around town and checked out the other restaurants, shops and tour companies. Around noon, we decided it was a good time to go tubing. So we rented a tube for a mere 55,000 Kip (plus a 60,000 kip deposit) and then were loaded into a tuk-tuk which took us up river. We had previously purchased some waterproof money bags to protect our kip in the water. We did not trust our camera in the bags, so we do not have any pictures of the tubing or bars on the river.

It was a short drive up river, then our tubes were loaded into a boat and we were transported across the river to the first bar. Yes bar. Tubing in Vang Vieng is really a party zone where you start at a bar and drink loads of alcohol, then jump in your tube and drift downstream to the next bar. As you float by, they throw in a rope with a bottle on the end, and you hang on and they haul you in. Each bar has a theme. Some have a primitive form of wakeboarding, where a board, which looks much like a short door with a rope attached to it for hanging on to, and another rope which is attached to a wire going across the river, is available for anyone brave enough to try. Another bar had a giant slide. A couple of them had rope swings or trapezes hanging from trees out above the river. Every bar had cheap drinks, and apparantly some had Happy Shakes, supposedly laced with mushrooms or some other substance. Many bars had free shots and pretty well every one of them had flourescent spray paint to decorate your body. I stayed away from the spray paint, because it seems like it would be pretty nasty for the skin. In town, most young people were covered in it, and I understand it's pretty much impossible to get it off with anything but time.

At the first bar, we each had a small beer. This bar was very crowded, with boatloads of new tubers arriving every few minutes. The music was dance music from the 90s and it was loud, but it added to the party atmosphere. I found myself tapping my foot and bobbing my head. No one seemed to be leaving, but eventually a couple of people did, so Peter and I headed for our tubes and started drifting down river. The next bar wasn't very far down river and it was on the other side. They quickly threw us ropes and hauled us in. Peter made it fine, but I got pulled out of my tube, and not wanting to lose my 60,000 Kip deposit, and feeling my face get pulled under as I held on to the rope with one hand and the tube with my other, I let go of the rope. There was another bar a few metres further downstream and I jumped back into my tube and this time caught the rope successfully and they hauled me in. I walked back to the last bar - maybe only 20 metres, and joined Peter, this time for a water. We had the option of jumping in a giant mud field but, nah, I passed. It kind of stunk.

This bar wasn't very crowded, so we decided to head down river to the next one. That's when it happened. We got in our tubes, and just as we were starting to drift, another tuber was coming in and I saw his tube getting away so I grabbed it and handed it to one of the Laos workers who was in the water and yelled at him to grab the flip flop I saw floating. THEN I saw the kid from the tube, and he was going under, then he bobbed up, but only his head was coming up, to his mouth, then down he went again. I knew it wasn't right. He wasn't trying to swim and he wasn't gasping for air. He came back up again, this time right next to my tube, so I reached out and grabbed his arm and pulled him to my tube, where he hung on to my tube and I hung on to him. If he had floated past me, he would have been caught in the current and gone downstream, where there was no one for at least a hundred metres or so. He was weakly clutching my tube and his face was blue and his eyes were wide open and staring at nothing, his pupils tiny dots. Water dribbled out of the right side of his mouth, but he was not breathing. I yelled over my shoulder for someone to help him and I held on to him tightly. I heard Peter, who was beside me, tell the guy he was going to be ok. Later I realized Peter was holding on to my tube with one hand and a rope with the other, which was why were weren't going downstream at the moment. We were about three metres or so from the shore. It felt like forever, but a Laos lifeguard from the bar had thrown on lifejacket and jumped into the water and quickly grabbed the guy in the proper headlock and swam him to shore. On the shore there were a lot of people surrounding the guy and the lay him down and I heard someone yell to put him on his side, then I saw the young man throwing up a lot of water. We had started drifting down river at this time, and soon I could not see or hear anything, but I was relieved to know he was likely recovering now.

We stopped at the next bar and ordered a beer, but I could only drink half of it. I was terribly shaken by the event and could not rid my mind of the face on the young man. He was close to death and his eyes were still haunting me. I vividly remembered his beard, moustache, dark hair and nose ring, but I did not recognize him, even though I had met him several times over the past few days. It wasn't until the next day, when I was talking with some people from the slow boat that we had taken to Luang Prabang a few days back that we found out that the young man who had been drowning in the river was standing right in front of me, alive and well, and that I had crossed his path many times over the past few days! He was only 19 and British, and so full of life. I was so happy to see him laughing and breathing and having fun. We talked for a while and he told me his story. He had grabbed the rope but not being a strong swimmer, decided to wrap it around his arm a few times to secure it as he was hauled in. However, he was pulled off his tube and he went under, and unable to let go of the rope, he could not surface, and disoriented, he swam down instead of up. The next thing he knew he had swallowed water and could not breathe and he said he felt very calm, knowing that this was it for his life. He did not remember my grabbing him or Peter talking with him - he was likely in shock but he did remember throwing up huge amounts of muddy water and river weed. After that he was okay, and even tubed down the river - this time with a lifejacket on. He was perfectly fine, but amazed he had cheated death.

I don't know why I was in the river when he came by. I think it was fate that our paths crossed so many times that week. I feel strongly that I was meant to be there. I don't think what I did was heroic or extraordinary. I was in the right place at the right time, and I didn't think, feel or even make a decision to grab him, I just did it. He was there and I was there. If I had not been there, he likely would not have survived. A drowning person only bobs in the water (always vertically with hands under water) for 20 - 60 seconds. After that they sink. I know this because I googled it that evening after the event. I was so haunted by his face I needed to read up on drownings. I did not sleep that night as the image of his face would not leave my mind. After I met him on the street, alive and well, I was able to let go of the image and replace it with one of his laughing, carefree face.

The rest of the tubing down river was fun, but both Peter and I were wary of the current. We stopped at a couple more bars, but did not drink. At the end, or almost the end, we were quite happy when a couple of "pirates" of about ten years of age, jumped into the river and dragged our tubes to the shore. They either didn't speak English, or pretended not to speak English. We questioned them as to whether this was the end or if we had missed it (there was not a lot of signage and we had already passed the last bar). Apparantly, the end was just downriver, but the boys saved us a long walk back to the tubing rental place where we had to return our tubes, and we only shelled out 20,000 kip each to them. They were good pirates, making a dishonest living, but we were happy to be out of the river. We walked a couple of blocks back up river along the street and found the tube rental place and headed to our guesthouse for a well needed shower.

Vang Vieng is a fabulous little town, which is hopping at night as the tubers stumble back into town, covered in mud, spray paint and carrying tubes. A lot of them returned after dark, and I wondered how they navigated the river, not that one had much control over it. It is no surprise to me that many foreigners lose their life tubing in the river in this town. I am just very glad that one less life was lost that day.

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Photos

Typical restaurant seats
All the more comfortable to watch Friends episodes.

Tubers
They are getting out of the river in town to avoid the tuk-tuk ride back or the pirate kids we had to face.

Comments

[Liz]

Wow!
Pretty crazy adventure, Annice! That man is lucky you were around. Almost tragedies aside, it sounds like you're having a great time.You'll have great stories to share when you return.