Mud, Friends and Kayaks

On arrival in Vang Vieng, after a 7 hour bus journey, I had decided that Luang Prabang had been my favourite South East Asian town – it was just so relaxed and the days passed so comfortably. So arriving in the building site that is Vang Vieng was a bit disappointing.

I had fond memories of the town, of sipping Beer Lao by the river and tubing down the river amid unspoilt scenery and small villages. Now, however, it is full of TV bars playing back to back reruns of Friends and The Simpsons. We found about 3 places to eat and drink that didn’t have a television and we stuck to them.

Another downside is the constant building work that is going on. When we arrived the roads were just mud, and when we left 2 days later they were almost finished and no doubt about 2 new buildings had sprung up. And then there’s the reason so many backpackers never leave – the narcotics trade. Let’s just say that on most menus in most restaurants there is a ‘special’ page for those who like their food 100% adulterated.

But, we managed to avoid that scene by spending our only full day in Vang Vieng on the Nam Song river in kayaks. We were taken by truck to a spot about 20 miles upstream and kayaked our way back, visiting two caves along the way. The second cave was pretty special, we were guided about 500 metres inside floating on huge inflated tyres with torches – that was pretty exciting. The kayaking itself was fun too, we went over some little rapids (I think only grades 1-3) and didn’t capsize – although one couple did!

On our way back we stopped at one of the many bars that have opened up along the banks of the river. One of the town’s most popular pastimes is tubing down the river on a tyre, punctuated (not punctured) by drinking spots. The bar we went to featured a huge swinging rope for jumping into the river, and of course, lots and lots of alcohol. We watched many drunken tourists as they remounted their tubes (with difficulty), and so were not so surprised when we came across a single girl floating asleep in her tube. Had we not rescued her it could have been nasty… she was in a pretty bad state and needed to be taken back on our guide’s kayak while we took her tube. Apparantly she’s been drinking buckets of vodka redbull all afternoon before having a row with her friend over a boy…