Tubing in Vang Vieng was Laos-tastic

Initially I was a bit apprehensive about visiting Laos becuase, after spending more time than I intended in Thailand, every day that I spent in Laos was a day that I couldn´t spend in China. And the more I read about China the more time I wanted to spend there.

During my travels however, I met lots of people who had either already been to Laos or knew someone who had been. I cannot understate the effect that everyone's reviews of Laos - in particular Vang Vieng - had on me.

Floating down a river on an inflatable innner tube. Effectively pub crawling from bar to bar in a tropical mountain environment. With great music, fun rides like swings and ziplines, cold drinks by the bucketful for only 10,000kip, beautiful smiling people everywhere and the hot sun shining (34 degrees in the middle of February). If ever there was an activity with my name all over it than this was it. How could I skip it? I couldn't.

So, I made my compromise and decided to spend 5 days in Laos, including 4 straight in Vang Vieng which left only 10 days in China*, down from the 20 or so days I initially thought I originally planned to spend there.

Back to Vang Vieng. If you want it to be, it is one big continuous party every day of the year and people brag about how many straight days they have attended.** It is a lot like what I imagine US spring break to be. Or, from personal experience, it reminded me of Cayman Islands Stingray City boat parties only instead of being in the Carribean Sea it`s on a fast moving river in South East Asia, instead of taking a party boat out to the North Sound you jump in from the banks of the river and instead of having live stingrays to play with you have manmade swings and ziplines with questionable safety records. Also instead of it being once a month or whatever the boat parties were it goes on every single day.***The attitude of the two events are the same though in that no one ever has a bad time, even when they hurt themselves.

Speaking of which, if you think that young backpacker types, mixed with cheap and readily available alcohol and giant swings over a fast moving, and in places quite shallow river are a recipe for people to hurt themselves, then you´ve given it a lot more thought than most of the people who actually attend.

It was commonplace to see people with bloody faces from landing too close to a rock or limping around with cut feet or worse and I even bumped into a guy who, even after he broke his leg, bagged it up and was back tubing down the river within a few days.

One girl (from Toronto if I recall correcly) who was on an organized tour and had only one day in Vang Vieng, arrived at the river, ordered a drink, went up to use the swing at the first bar, lost her grip and fell on her face into the water and knocked herself out cold. She seemed fine when I was talking to her that night though.

All of this element of danger does nothing to dampen everyone`s spirits and people wear their injuries like a badge of honour (after the pain goes away and or they regain conciousness that is).

I managed not to hurt myself on the river but, I will say that, at my age, four straight days of tubing is about three too many**** but, like any good holiday, it makes for some interesting stories and it`s good to find out where your limits are. My limit is four straight. The bucket of gin and tonic late on the fourth day probably being an unwise move.

Later on the fourth night I would, in separate incidents, trip and fall on my face, lose my flip flops and, I´m sure in a voice much louder and drunker than I inteded, vocalised to my new best mate Jaimie***** my disappointment about my lack of success trying to convince a pretty girl that I was the most charming and handsome and articulate guy she´d ever met.

Even in my post tubing state I was pretty excited that my next stop would be China though. It had been a long time comig. Bring on some culture shock!

Photos 1) Foreshadowing my stay in Vang Vieng, the bus I was on from Vientianne stopped to add some cargo. About 80 boxes of Tiger whisky. They stashed it wherever they could find room, behind seats, in the aisle, etc. I am not too mature to have made a little fort out of the boxes they piled around me and then take a photo. I got too busy in Laos to take any other photos so hopefully I´ve done a good enough job describing it. If not use google images to lookup tubing in Laos you´ll see what I mean.

*I would cram an awful lot into those 8 days though.
**One guy was up to 85 out of 90 days which he "tatooed" on himself with magic marker
***I heard tale that in the wet season the river really moves fast and it is too dangerous but something tells me that people still do it anyway.
****Though probably the greatest cure for a hangover is simply to go tubing again. Once you jump in the refreshing river, see smiling faces all around, listen to the exact same playlist you listened to yesterday and have that first sip of Tiger Beer, which for some reason was cheaper thanthe local Beer Lao, you forget all about why it was that you didn´t feel like getting out of bed just a few minutes earlier.
*****Met Jamie on the bus to Vang Vieng from Vientiane. He took the photo. We took turns convincing each other to go tubing on alternate days when either or both of us deep down new a break was probably a better option.