In the Tubing Vang Vieng

When I look back on it, my next two stops in Vang Vieng and Luang Prubang are some of the places I remember most fondly (discounting the bus rides between these places!).  As touristy/backpacker-y as it was, Vang Vieng was truly beautiful.  On the main street, all of the establishments looked very similar.  The places to eat, like most places in Southeast Asia, were open to the streets.  Cushions and low tables were set up on platforms.  This was more like a place to sit and hang out, or even curl up on a comfy pillow, than a place to sit and eat a meal.  And at each restaurant, numerous TV screens repeatedly played reruns of Friends and Family Guy.  That was the part we could have easily done without, but somewhat in our favor, the power went out in Vang Vieng for at least a portion of every day.  (This was fine when we were eating, of course, to avoid the TV shows, but bothersome when we were trying to sleep in our hot room at night and the fan stopped working or in the morning when we wanted to get fruit shakes but none of the blenders worked.)  Various shops sold sunglasses, “In The Tubing Vang Vieng” tank-tops and T-shirts, and beautiful silver jewelry.

Away from the main street was where Vang Vieng stole my heart, however.  After relaxing in town for the first part of our first day, we rented tubes and took a tuk-tuk down to the Nam Song River, which flowed between the tall limestone karsts and just west of the town.  I had heard from a friend about tubing down the river in Vang Vieng: how it was lined with bars, and every year tourists ended up getting wasted and lost out on the river past dark, then drowning.  Because it was the dry season, the river did not pose as great of a threat, and we didn’t have plans to get so drunk that we wouldn’t get back in time to receive back the deposit we had made on our tubes.  When the tuk-tuk dropped us off, we walked about 500 meters down a dirt path beside the river before finding a place to enter the river.  The water was cool but comfortable.  I clipped my shoes and clothes to my tube and we set off down the lazy river.

Bungalow-style bars made of bamboo lined the river.  Each had something to draw tubers in: large porches, rope wings, water slides, zip lines, loud music, trampolines, and of course, alcohol.  Staff members waded into the water, trying to drag people in by their tubes or throwing ropes out to pull people in.  Malone and I avoided these attempts and continued floating along down the river.  The tree-covered limestone mountains were beautiful where they rose high above us against the sky.  The water itself was clear and strangely devoid of fish or much else, other than the floating leaves, occasional stick, and thankfully even more seldom plastic water bottles.  Though the water was shallow, we floated easily along, only occasionally needing to navigate between groups of rocks.

At one point, we rounded a bend in the river, and it was perhaps at this point that the place’s beauty struck me the most.  The mountains were greener, the water looked almost green, perhaps because of this tropical reflection, and the bars had thinned out so the place was more secluded and wild.  It was quiet here and peaceful to float down the river, looking up at the endlessly impressive mountains.  As the sun began to lower behind the mountains and the water began to feel a bit cooler, we exited the river and got a tuk-tuk back into town.  Still in our wet clothes, we stopped on our walk back to our hotel for some warm noodle soup.  From our porch, we watched the sky come alive as the sun set behind the mountains, then went back into town to shop and enjoy an evening snack: fruit shakes and street pancakes.  If I could only live many more days like that first day in Vang Vieng!