You might not have heard of this place. Vang Vieng. Relatively unknown to the world of back home, yet infamous amongst backpacker circles. My first glimpse of it was through the display of a digital camera. The annoying Swedish girl who invaded our conversation in the Cameron Highlands showed me a video of her and a friend, very drunk, being swung about in the scoop of a digger. Stories involved concussions, alcohol poisoning and even a few deaths. See, it's a place where dangerous activities and heavy imbibing mix, and establishes itself as an enclave of sin and indulgence in an otherwise level-headed country. The slow boat was the opening act. This was the main event.
To get there, I took a public bus that whirled across and around mountaintops on a road that was built in any way that could get it through the impossible terrain of northern Laos. Aside from a mild bout of motion sickness, the views were spectacular. We were so high up that I couldn't even see the valleys in between the mountains we skirted around. It was a trip along mountain ridges with a constant clear view for miles; like road tripping Valhalla.
The inside the bus was a thing of non-beauty. Loud Lao pop played at a very high volume. What's worse was that it was the instrumental karaoke versions of the songs. Thankfully, after a few bumpy roads, the VCD player shit the bed leaving on silence behind.
It was night when we rolled into Vang Vieng. There was only one small breakdown. I disembarked without a clue where I was. It was night and, if this was Vang Vieng, there should be falang stumbling about bringing shame to their home nations somewhere. I saw no one. One guesthouse I tried spoke no English. Was I in Vang Vieng? A large black space separated two roads. I assumed it was the river. I walked around it and started seeing English signs. Next came the brash music. Finally the beer beaters and ruddy faces. I had arrived. I found a guesthouse quite easily and went to sleep.
I woke up early to seize the day. My room was a fantastic place to wash the trail off. Hot shower, fresh towels, double bed, soap, flush toilet. The kind of place to do a full body overhaul, and it's a wonder what that can do for you motivation. My clean laundry was still a respectable 80%. I threw on my favorite shirt and did a walk around looking for breakfast.
The town was dead at 11am. It was your usual tourist ghetto mess minus the tourists. T-shirt stores, tattoo parlors, Internet cafes, overpriced restaurants selling banana pancakes. Tourist information centers advertised a wealth of activities from cave exploring to kayaking to elephant rides. I had heard that the big draw for Vang Vieng was the tubing. Basically, you rent an inner tube, they drive you 4km up the river and you float down, checking out a myriad of attractions along the way. I was in town to do this. I followed the cardinal gestures of a few locals and tracked town the tubing hut. There were a few early-bird tourists there. One I recognized as the loud, older Aussie from the slow boat. I paid for my tube and a dry bag, they wrote a number on my hand then tossed me into a songthaew to be whisked upriver with the others.
It was noon. At the start of the tubing course, dozens of bars were set up along the river. Blink 182 blared from one bar offering "cheap buckets". Another had a frighteningly high rope swing that flung anyone brave enough to try directly into the river. An enthusiastic Lao gestured wildly in front of each establishment. The place was deserted unfortunately. In fact, there were a few local kids taking advantage of the tourist lull to swim about in the river. The big Aussie lurched in and crashed their party quite nicely. Myself and the others joined him.
The current was slow. As we gradually made our way past the bars, the owners threw empty bottles on strings towards us, trying to pull us in. Every hundred feet or so, a bar would do this. One sign advertised "mud volleyball". The river was slow, and the crowds small so the touts spent a good long while trying to fish (quite literally) for my business. Whiskey buckets. My god, if I ever crave one of those before noon in the hot sun, someone please punch me in the liver.
The river picked up every once and a while and zipped along a shallow corridor. Dudes ahead would shout "bums up!"so we wouldn't scrape our asses across the jagged rocks below. Sometimes, huge rocks would jut out and I'd just bounce in between them like a pinball. A group of us stopped at one bar that was inexplicably blasting Fleetwood Mac. A myna bird spoke Lao to me.
Back in the river, motorboats with old British tourists aboard zipped by. A few kids swam up and tried to board my tube every so often. The next bar we stopped at was called "Last Bar". It was being manned by an old Lao lady with all but one tooth who didn't seem to mind the loud French electro music being blasted from the speakers behind her. Any time someone ordered a beer, should would press the cold can against their back for a kick. The group was about 75% Aussie, so the conversation was dominated by talk of Aussie rock bands, Aborigines, pet wallabies, local teams, local beers etc... The big Aussie man was one hell of a conversational force to be reckoned with. He'd been on holiday with his wife for the past 7 months and was just bursting with stories of his travels. I looked at my invisible watch.
The tubes had to be back at 6. It was 4:30 and we had no idea how much further we had to go. I paddled ahead of the group. Tuk tuk drivers now lined the river banks hoping to profit off of the 6pm curfew and subsequent late charge. The others gave in. I paid for my tube ride and was going to get it, so I soldiered on. I passed fishermen casting nets, children jumping off of bridges and locals bathing. Things got a lot more rustic at this stretch of river. "Last Bar" really was the last bar. The current picked up again and I shot past a "2km to town" sign. Some tuk tuk driver kept hollering at me from the shore every 100 meters. I was clearly his last chance for a fare. I wasn't giving up.
A "tubing ends here" sign asserted itself as I approached town. 5:40 was the time. My biceps hurt from paddling. I gave my tube back, collected my deposit and hit the showers to wash all of the river funk off of me.
I had some second-rate pad Thai for dinner and milled about. Finally, the town started to show signs of life, albeit the kind that looked like they had just woken up. Bars showing episodes of Family Guy and Friends were packed with people who looked like they had just sampled the "happy menu". I guess vacation to them means doing what you do back home, just in another place.
At night the streets really lit up. Khao San Town was what this place should've been called. A lot of very young people too. One girl was celebrating her 18th birthday. 18! I felt old amongst this loud, boisterous crowd. A couple of guys from the slow boat recognized me and gave me the requisite salutations. I was hoping to track down some of the guys I hung with in Luang Prabang and got directed to "Bucket Bar". Sweet lord, I thought. As I crossed a wooden footbridge to get there, I could hear three separate bars, all within an earshot of one another, playing "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis. There's something about Brits when they hear that song, it makes them get all bro-ey and throw arms round one another and sing. Can't think of a Canadian equivalent.
The staff at Bucket Bar was all white partyboys. People who, evidently, "lived to party", or vice versa maybe? They doled out the $1 whiskey buckets with maximum force. I found my tube mates perched around a table and settled in with them. I embellished how awesome the river got after they had gotten out. The crowd began to swell as the music shifted towards a more steady pulse. Elevated platforms became dance floors. Everyone was so shockingly young. My older tubing contingent seemed content just shooting the breeze while the young kids shambled about the dancefloor.
I wanted to have fun. I bought a whiskey bucket, and tried, but for some reason, thoughts kept smacking the back of my mind telling me that I just didn't belong. So much young stupidity that I could just not join in good conscience, nor would it have me. Bespectacled, receding hairline, dress shirt, bad posture. I missed my friends in Korea and Canada. It was never a fun night without them. My mood quickly shifted to wistfulness and longing. Nobody appeared to be as alone as I was that night.
I dodged the gauntlet of prostitutes on the way out. They seem to relentlessly target guys leaving clubs alone. I bought a cheap sandwich and gnawed on it back in my hotel room, deciding on my plan of action for tomorrow. I was going to leave. Yeah, there was lots of fun stuff to do during the day, but I couldn't stand being in a place like this by myself, especially at night time. I packed up before I went to sleep so I could leave as early as possible.
The next morning I discovered that the "river"next to the bus stop was actually an abandoned air strip. I walked by the side of the road with my pack hoping to flag down a bus bound for Vientiane. An unfriendly British guy was there too. Should've played some Oasis for him, watch him friendly up right quick. The bus I snagged was a VIP. It was 9am and, as you can imagine, the town was dead; a perfect time to make an escape after not even 48 hours. A young man hopped out and loaded my pack into the cargo hold. Vientiane is the capital of Laos, all history and landmarks. I hoped it would welcome me. The VIP bus certainly did.
To get there, I took a public bus that whirled across and around mountaintops on a road that was built in any way that could get it through the impossible terrain of northern Laos. Aside from a mild bout of motion sickness, the views were spectacular. We were so high up that I couldn't even see the valleys in between the mountains we skirted around. It was a trip along mountain ridges with a constant clear view for miles; like road tripping Valhalla.
The inside the bus was a thing of non-beauty. Loud Lao pop played at a very high volume. What's worse was that it was the instrumental karaoke versions of the songs. Thankfully, after a few bumpy roads, the VCD player shit the bed leaving on silence behind.
It was night when we rolled into Vang Vieng. There was only one small breakdown. I disembarked without a clue where I was. It was night and, if this was Vang Vieng, there should be falang stumbling about bringing shame to their home nations somewhere. I saw no one. One guesthouse I tried spoke no English. Was I in Vang Vieng? A large black space separated two roads. I assumed it was the river. I walked around it and started seeing English signs. Next came the brash music. Finally the beer beaters and ruddy faces. I had arrived. I found a guesthouse quite easily and went to sleep.
I woke up early to seize the day. My room was a fantastic place to wash the trail off. Hot shower, fresh towels, double bed, soap, flush toilet. The kind of place to do a full body overhaul, and it's a wonder what that can do for you motivation. My clean laundry was still a respectable 80%. I threw on my favorite shirt and did a walk around looking for breakfast.
The town was dead at 11am. It was your usual tourist ghetto mess minus the tourists. T-shirt stores, tattoo parlors, Internet cafes, overpriced restaurants selling banana pancakes. Tourist information centers advertised a wealth of activities from cave exploring to kayaking to elephant rides. I had heard that the big draw for Vang Vieng was the tubing. Basically, you rent an inner tube, they drive you 4km up the river and you float down, checking out a myriad of attractions along the way. I was in town to do this. I followed the cardinal gestures of a few locals and tracked town the tubing hut. There were a few early-bird tourists there. One I recognized as the loud, older Aussie from the slow boat. I paid for my tube and a dry bag, they wrote a number on my hand then tossed me into a songthaew to be whisked upriver with the others.
It was noon. At the start of the tubing course, dozens of bars were set up along the river. Blink 182 blared from one bar offering "cheap buckets". Another had a frighteningly high rope swing that flung anyone brave enough to try directly into the river. An enthusiastic Lao gestured wildly in front of each establishment. The place was deserted unfortunately. In fact, there were a few local kids taking advantage of the tourist lull to swim about in the river. The big Aussie lurched in and crashed their party quite nicely. Myself and the others joined him.
The current was slow. As we gradually made our way past the bars, the owners threw empty bottles on strings towards us, trying to pull us in. Every hundred feet or so, a bar would do this. One sign advertised "mud volleyball". The river was slow, and the crowds small so the touts spent a good long while trying to fish (quite literally) for my business. Whiskey buckets. My god, if I ever crave one of those before noon in the hot sun, someone please punch me in the liver.
The river picked up every once and a while and zipped along a shallow corridor. Dudes ahead would shout "bums up!"so we wouldn't scrape our asses across the jagged rocks below. Sometimes, huge rocks would jut out and I'd just bounce in between them like a pinball. A group of us stopped at one bar that was inexplicably blasting Fleetwood Mac. A myna bird spoke Lao to me.
Back in the river, motorboats with old British tourists aboard zipped by. A few kids swam up and tried to board my tube every so often. The next bar we stopped at was called "Last Bar". It was being manned by an old Lao lady with all but one tooth who didn't seem to mind the loud French electro music being blasted from the speakers behind her. Any time someone ordered a beer, should would press the cold can against their back for a kick. The group was about 75% Aussie, so the conversation was dominated by talk of Aussie rock bands, Aborigines, pet wallabies, local teams, local beers etc... The big Aussie man was one hell of a conversational force to be reckoned with. He'd been on holiday with his wife for the past 7 months and was just bursting with stories of his travels. I looked at my invisible watch.
The tubes had to be back at 6. It was 4:30 and we had no idea how much further we had to go. I paddled ahead of the group. Tuk tuk drivers now lined the river banks hoping to profit off of the 6pm curfew and subsequent late charge. The others gave in. I paid for my tube ride and was going to get it, so I soldiered on. I passed fishermen casting nets, children jumping off of bridges and locals bathing. Things got a lot more rustic at this stretch of river. "Last Bar" really was the last bar. The current picked up again and I shot past a "2km to town" sign. Some tuk tuk driver kept hollering at me from the shore every 100 meters. I was clearly his last chance for a fare. I wasn't giving up.
A "tubing ends here" sign asserted itself as I approached town. 5:40 was the time. My biceps hurt from paddling. I gave my tube back, collected my deposit and hit the showers to wash all of the river funk off of me.
I had some second-rate pad Thai for dinner and milled about. Finally, the town started to show signs of life, albeit the kind that looked like they had just woken up. Bars showing episodes of Family Guy and Friends were packed with people who looked like they had just sampled the "happy menu". I guess vacation to them means doing what you do back home, just in another place.
At night the streets really lit up. Khao San Town was what this place should've been called. A lot of very young people too. One girl was celebrating her 18th birthday. 18! I felt old amongst this loud, boisterous crowd. A couple of guys from the slow boat recognized me and gave me the requisite salutations. I was hoping to track down some of the guys I hung with in Luang Prabang and got directed to "Bucket Bar". Sweet lord, I thought. As I crossed a wooden footbridge to get there, I could hear three separate bars, all within an earshot of one another, playing "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis. There's something about Brits when they hear that song, it makes them get all bro-ey and throw arms round one another and sing. Can't think of a Canadian equivalent.
The staff at Bucket Bar was all white partyboys. People who, evidently, "lived to party", or vice versa maybe? They doled out the $1 whiskey buckets with maximum force. I found my tube mates perched around a table and settled in with them. I embellished how awesome the river got after they had gotten out. The crowd began to swell as the music shifted towards a more steady pulse. Elevated platforms became dance floors. Everyone was so shockingly young. My older tubing contingent seemed content just shooting the breeze while the young kids shambled about the dancefloor.
I wanted to have fun. I bought a whiskey bucket, and tried, but for some reason, thoughts kept smacking the back of my mind telling me that I just didn't belong. So much young stupidity that I could just not join in good conscience, nor would it have me. Bespectacled, receding hairline, dress shirt, bad posture. I missed my friends in Korea and Canada. It was never a fun night without them. My mood quickly shifted to wistfulness and longing. Nobody appeared to be as alone as I was that night.
I dodged the gauntlet of prostitutes on the way out. They seem to relentlessly target guys leaving clubs alone. I bought a cheap sandwich and gnawed on it back in my hotel room, deciding on my plan of action for tomorrow. I was going to leave. Yeah, there was lots of fun stuff to do during the day, but I couldn't stand being in a place like this by myself, especially at night time. I packed up before I went to sleep so I could leave as early as possible.
The next morning I discovered that the "river"next to the bus stop was actually an abandoned air strip. I walked by the side of the road with my pack hoping to flag down a bus bound for Vientiane. An unfriendly British guy was there too. Should've played some Oasis for him, watch him friendly up right quick. The bus I snagged was a VIP. It was 9am and, as you can imagine, the town was dead; a perfect time to make an escape after not even 48 hours. A young man hopped out and loaded my pack into the cargo hold. Vientiane is the capital of Laos, all history and landmarks. I hoped it would welcome me. The VIP bus certainly did.
Bus ride to Vang Vieng.
Tubing.
Helping a brother out.
Dramatic cliffs overlooked the river.
A random temple. Lots of these in Asia.
Bridge.
Posts
canadian equivalent: "if i had a million dollors" barenaked ladies ...? haha.
ReplyDeletegood post, i can totally understand leaving early. move on, there's lots to see!