Vang Vieng, Laos

From Luang Prabang we decided to take the VIP bus to Vang Vieng, which was quite the experience!  The VIP bus itself was nice enough - it was traveling the curvy mountainous roads that left something to be desired.  They handed out small plastic bags at the beginning of the trip, which we originally thought was for trash, but it turned out they were for getting carsick.  An older gentleman behind us got sick right away, while a gal in front of us made it an hour or two before getting sick.  Nothing like the sound of people throwing up around you to set the mood for a trip!  The ride was about six hours total, with all of us happy to get off the bus! 

Vang Vieng is an interesting place.  It sits on a river, the Nam Song, and is famous for tubing.  The tubing scene is not your average tubing scene, that’s for sure.  The tubing operators drop you off a mile or so upriver, where you can float on your innertube back to town.  This takes anywhere from two to three hours.  Upriver, at the beginning, are tons of bars – in fact, many people don’t make it beyond this point!  As you go by on your innertube, the various bars throw ropes out to you to “rope you in” and offer you a free shot of Lao Lao whiskey (yuck!).  They all sell “happy shakes” loaded with various forms of happy drugs, marijuana, mushrooms, and as rumor has it, opium.  The bars also have crazy slides that dump into the river as well as swings and a trapeze where you can drop into the water.  Just the thing you want to try after having a happy shake!  Our guidebook warned us that many people drown each year from the combination of booze/drugs and the river.  There are also plainclothes policemen who will bust people for drugs, taking bribes as a second income. 

Swings and slides for tubers to enjoy!

Daron and I tubed the river early, before all the mayhem, and enjoyed the fabulous scenery the whole way back to town.  In the evening we saw the aftermath of the partygoers once they got back to town.  Lots of drunk barefoot people in their swimsuits, yelling, or fighting, or doing silly things like sitting in the middle of the road!  The Lao would step out of their businesses to watch too.  Lao people are very conservative – there were signs all over town to please “cover up” and not walk around town in your swimsuit, which all the tourists seemed to ignore.  I’m sure that the town, which runs the tubing business as a cooperative, puts up with it all in order to keep the money coming in. 

We rented mountain bikes one day and biked to a couple of caves outside of town.  The scenery was so beautiful!  The caves were amazing – the first one had a river running out of it, so we explored it via innertube.  A guide goes with you (everyone has their own headlamp), and there is an elevated rope that you use to pull yourself through the cave.  Our guide had a beautiful voice and sang Lao songs which echoed off the walls while we slowly traveled through the cave.  It was a magical experience. 

Tubers floating the river

After that cave, we asked our guide about other caves in the area.  He escorted us to another one a short distance away where we paid the entrance fee, donned our headlamps, and followed him inside.  We were surprised when he continued to lead us (thought we’d be on our own), and even more surprised when the cave just kept going and going.  After about an hour, we reached water.  Our guide said if we swam about ten minutes further into the cave we would come to a waterfall – and he wasn’t going with us!  It was a little too creepy for me (I like to be able to see what else is in the water with me), but Daron was up for it.  He was gone what seemed like a long time - when he returned he said it felt like an “X Files” moment, swimming alone in the cave.  I was just happy that nothing grabbed him in the water, and that he made it back! 

Mad cow!  (We crossed the canal to the other side)

After that highlight, we walked back through the cave and back towards our bikes.  We thanked our guide and said we wanted to tip him.  At that point he told us that the guided tour cost 300,000 kip (about $40).   Yikes!  We were never told this when we paid the entrance fee.  It was an uncomfortable moment, made more so because this was all happening in a deserted part of the trail with no other people around, except us and he brought his friend with him (just for this purpose, we wondered?), both of them in their mid 20s.  We didn’t have 300,000 kip on us, and would never have entered the cave for that amount – and honestly, it’s an exorbitant amount for anything here in Laos.  We offered him a smaller amount and he wasn’t happy so we added a little more.  He ended up getting 120,000 kip which was still a ridiculous amount.  I had a little moment where I was worried for our safety, but thankfully it worked out in the end.  It put a sour note on a good day, and we discussed it during the entire ride back, wondering what would have been the best way to handle it. 

Zoning out on "Family Guy"

One of the strangest parts of Vang Vieng is all the restaurants in town play endless loops of the TV shows “Friends” and “Family Guy.”  At least they do when the town has electricity!  Our first two days there the electricity went off at 8am and came back on in the evening.  Over the weekend it was on 24 hours, although one night it kept going out, maybe it was overloaded!  Anyhow, it was nice to get a little dose of Western culture, no matter how old or crazy it is (I’d never seen “Family Guy” before and it is a crazy show!).  For the price of a beer you could hang out all day and watch episode after episode.  I wondered how those two shows were picked to play and how long they’ve been doing this – never did find out the answer.  Lots of other travelers hated that American TV shows were playing in this foreign country, but for us being away so long, it felt like a little taste of home in this faraway land.