Oh man oh man! Vang Vieng, the city of contradictions! This is a city where you can buy a bag of opium at every other store on the main street but if you're out after curfew (11:30pm) you'll more than likely end up in the back of a police van. Where to start?
The whole town is composed of about six streets. Most of these streets are filled with restaurants and bars that have elevated seat platforms with pillows for you to lie on. The show "Friends" is played ad nauseum from about seven in the morning until eleven at night. While standing at the main intersection it's possible to hear no less than four episodes all going at once. After a few hours Ross's whiny little voice makes you want to take a bath with a plugged-in toaster but I swear to god I saw some people never move for entire days!!! So why come here? What's this place got to offer that's so special?
The answer my friends, is tubing. Picture this. You and your friends roll out of bed hungover, (or more likely still intoxicated,) from the night before. After a greasy breakfast and a few episodes of fucking "Friends" you walk down to the river where for about $3 you're given an inner tube and ten minute ride north.
The truck stops, you get out, the truck drives away. There's a sign on the side on the bank of the river that tells you not to litter and other than a few cows there's no one around. You jump into your tube and off you go!
All along the river are "rest stops" where you can buy a giant beer for a buck and use the rope swings that look like they couldn't support the weight of a six year old girl. Usually there's a kid standing on a platform who throws you a stick with a rope attached to it to pull you in. Oh yeah, and for buying a beer some places throw in a free shot of "Lao Lao," homemade rice whiskey that could fell an elephant.
Most of the bars sell marijuana and magic mushrooms too, so combined with the sun and all the Beer Lao you've had you're usually blind drunk by about 10:30 in the morning.
The good news is you're not alone! There are anywhere between two and five hundred people doing the exact same thing, and some of them are even more screwed up than you are!
The clothes come off, some people pass out on the bars, a volleyball game starts up, there's music and dancing and vomit and hormone induced mayhem that fuels a competition to see who can hurt themselves the most on the rope swing and it goes on and on........
And it's even more fun than you can imagine!
This was the first place we stopped. It pretty much went downhill from there.
At around 5 o'clock I noticed that it was getting dark and that my friend Luke and I were the only people still in the bar. Somehow I'd gotten so drunk that I'd lost my tube but luckily Luke still had his so we both jumped on and away we went. Did I say it was getting dark? What I meant to say was that it was pitch black. Having no idea where we were supposed to get off Luke and I merrily floated down the river praying that we'd see a light or something that indicated that this was where we were supposed to get off. Nothing. All of a sudden we heard this voice calling out in the darkness. We paddled over and found this wasted chick who's tube was caught in some reeds. After we untangled her we floated for another fifteen minutes or so before we saw a light. The three of us jumped out and wandered up to a house where the startled Lao family that was having dinner pointed us in the direction back to town. We'd missed the last stop by about a half an hour. I'm really not that surprised that a few people die every year doing this!!! WWwweeeeeeeeeeee!
We were tired of standing up all day and drinking so we decided that night we'd drink lying down instead.
I woke up with that oh so familiar feeling that I'd done something wrong the next day, so to cleanse our souls my friends and I decided to check out the nearby caves. The friends that weren't still coming down from the night before that is.....
Despite all the gigantic spiders the caves are pretty cool. We were told to hire a guide because some people have gotten lost and been stuck in there for days at a time! Others have died of exposure. Guide it was then!
We were all tuckered out after out big day of caving so that night we found a quiet little bar that would let us plug in an ipod and watch a movie before going to bed. The next day we didn't really have anything planned..........let's see......what to do, what to do?
Yup. Round two!!!
This time we stuck mainly to the three big bars halfway down the river and just chilled out most of the day.
That's me.
This is actually a lot more dangerous than it looks. I tried to do a triple back flip on my last go but I under rotated, landed on my face and I'm pretty sure gave myself a minor concussion. You know when you hit your head so hard that everything flashes white for a second? Yeah, that's what happened. When I surfaced people were still staring and pointing and going "OOOoooooo......." so I thought I'd better quit while I was ahead and go grab another beer.
Yes.
Near the end of the afternoon, when I was absolutely out of my mind wasted, this girl caught my eye and it looked like it was on. Except for one problem. Little miss liquor face is not good at smoking weed, and as soon as the effects started to work their magic she promptly went from really wasted to unconscious dead weight. Her friends and I managed to get her up onto the bank where she stuck her fingers down her throat and proceeded to throw up rather violently. As if this wasn't bad enough, some basic motor skill was still operating on a survival mode and she thought she could recover herself by making this action "sexy." She then proceeded to start felating her fingers, (much to my amusement and her friends horror,) and which point I made my exit, excused myself, and walked back towards town.
That night my buddy was out after curfew and the cops picked him up. They threw him into the back of an unmarked van, took him about 30km's into the middle of the jungle and demanded money. Then they drove off and left him there. After several hours of walking he found a farmhouse and stole a bike to ride back to town. He got in at 5am to a girlfriend that was a little less than impressed! Especially since she'd woken up a few hours before to some guy who'd broken into her room and nicked her camera! Nice.
The next day I thought I'd get some exercise so a friend and I signed up to do some rock climbing. Check out the view of the town!
Your eyes played trick on you up there. You had to hike up a hundred meters to the base of the cliff and by the time you completed the route and turned around and it felt like you were hundreds of feet above the ground!
The whole cliff is limestone which I've never really climbed before. It was pretty cool and some of the climbs were really challenging!
By the time I finished it looked like I'd just slept with a fat chick.
Sweet.
I almost forgot, on the way out our jeep was surrounded by cattle. We actually smacked one really hard on the ass with the fender and that got 'er moving!
'Twas another big day which meant another quiet night.
This is called the "Happy Menu" and most bars offer them. The best part is that drugs are apparently illegal in Laos only no one told the locals.
Duh.
My pizza tasted AMAZING that night!
The next day I headed to Vientiene, (the capital,) for a day. Like all capitals, Vientiene was overrated and boring and the guesthouse I stayed at was pretty average. I did take a tuk-tuk our to Pha That Luang, (The Golden Stupa,) but it was closed so I just walked around a bit.
I had a bit of a tough time believing that this was real gold. Especially since it was peeling in places.
Some of the paintings in the adjacent building were pretty impressive however.
I just don't know if you'd want to paint your bedroom that colour.
After a quick stop at the national memorial, I headed back to my guesthouse to have an early night. The next day I'd be flying Lao Airline again and I knew my dreams would be punctuated with images of plane crashes and death so the more rest I got the better.
