September 12th -14th
Vang Vieng lies about four hours north by bus from Vientiane and is the backpacking destination in Laos for "river tubing". We had met a number of bruised travellers before arriving who had told us about the craze that had started some 3 years ago and which has taken over in popularity from kayaking but I found it hard to imagine what it was all about until we were actually there doing it. For those who haven't heard about it, here's the deal: each person gets an inflatable ring or "tube" which you sit in the middle of and which helps transport you down a 4km stretch of river. The current of the river takes you in the right direction but the precise positioning of your tube in the river is down to flapping your hands and arms in the water, resulting in many a "tuber" drifting, somewhat uncontrollably, into rocks and bushes on the riverbanks. What's more, there are ten bars which line the 4km stretch and there are no instructions apart from keeping an eye out on each other to make sure you get off at the same bar as your tubing buddies. The general vibe seems to be to go to as many bars as possible or, as in our case, find the bars with the biggest river swings and spend most of your time there. Now getting to these bamboo river bars is quite a challenge. If you make the right signal when drifting near a bar, a "riverchild" should throw you a rope with a tyre on the end or a bamboo stick which you can then grab and be pulled to shore with. If you miss the lifeline, or it wasn't clear from the positioning of your tube that you wanted to go to that bar, you have to decide whether to skip the bar and keep floating downstream or jump off your tube and fight against the current to get back to the bar's bamboo steps. The bars themselves are also quite surreal places. Music is blasted out of huge speakers, there are little "chill" areas where people are just lounging on the floor, and most of them have a volleyball court and river swings/zip lines into the water. The river swings are mounted from tall bamboo platforms and extend several metres over the river. The scenery you drift past when tubing is quite spectacular - limestone mountains, rice fields, wooden houses on stilts, cows, ducks, chickens roaming freely, and, of course, the ever-fascinating tourist, dangling from ropes, swinging and screaming, dancing on bamboo platforms, floating downstream two on one inflatable and wrestling against the current in desparate attempts to get to the next supply of alcohol. I don't know if we, the tourists, are crazy or the locals for allowing and encouraging us in our mad pursuit of "adventure". An activity which would astonish any western "Health and Safety" department is, however, so much fun! I just had to buy the t-shirt afterwards, if only to see where in the world I will meet people who can share in remembering the experience.
Vang Vieng was also good for caving. We did both our own tour and an organised caving trip. For our own one, we rented bikes (which we couldn't actually ride on to get to the cave as we had to go through rice fields), got thoroughly drenched in a downpour and forgot to bring our torches so couldn't actually see anything when we arrived at the entrance of the cave, soaked to the skin. Robbie also got covered in mud when he slipped so ended up stripping off to his undies and returning to his bike dripping wet with a leaf covering his head which was somewhat of a sight for the locals. All that water was, however, good preparation for our organised caving trip where we actually entered a "water cave" and drifted through it on inflatable tubes which was an amazing experience (albeit quite cold!). Near the entrance of the cave the water was a fanstastic turquoise colour and the voice of our guide echoed beautifully as he sang songs in Lao to us.
A summary of some other things we did in Vang Vieng: we enjoyed watching several episodes of 'Friends" which are played all over the town in numerous "tv bars" (where you lie on wooden floors on stilts as if you were in your own living room and food and drink is brought to you); we learnt how to play a Finnish cardgame on a stormy night at our riverside guesthouse ($7 a night for our own wooden bungalow); Robbie worked behind a bar for free, managed to stay out til 4am despite bars closing at midnight and had people coming up to him the next evening asking him why he wasn't working in the bar; and we misunderstood a "Happy Hour" sign so had to drink twice as much beer to get one drink free and found out that malaria tablets don't seem to go too well with alcohol. I also phoned my mum for practically the first time since leaving on this trip. Now phoning home when you are far away can be quite difficult: firstly, the time difference often means that you end up speaking over the top of each other or you respond about 10 seconds late to each other's remarks. Then there is the difficulty of trying to convey a huge mass of experiences concisely. I find it very difficult, for example, to answer the simple question "So how are you?" I mean I have felt a whole range of emotions during the past seven weeks evoked from adrenalin high activities to more mundane feelings like a simple longing for some cheese. On this particular day, I had just got off a bus, didn't know where we were staying that night and had a bit of a cold so probably wasn't in the best form for chatting cheerily. I ended up blurting out something about being able to read a sign saying "Cornish Pasty" on it from where I was standing. I guess I was trying to say, succinctly, that places we have seen haven't been so isolated as I had imagined them to be but I'm not sure if that came across in my mad outburst. In short, I never feel that my love and concern for people I am talking to when I am away, as well as my excitement and enjoyment with travelling, is conveyed very well in the precious minutes available. Sorry mum!
All in all, Vang Vieng was a great place to hang out for a few days. The repeated episodes of "Friends" day in and day out must drive the locals mad but a little bit of home culture is great for the travelling soul and what better way is there to start your day than with a chocolate croissant, a coffee and some laughter?
