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Our journey to Vang Vieng took around 5 hours, winding up the beautiful Laos hillside. The scenery is just stunning. The rain evaporating up from the hills looked like smoke from lots of little fires and we passed through villages where cows and water buffalo casually crossed the roads, children waved at us and chickens roamed free. Happily we saw no bandits which apparently run that route, though I think that's more of a traveller whisper, something that happened about 8 years ago and doesn't anymore. Who knows.
We arrived at around tea time and were immediately struck by the limestone cliffs that surround the valley where this town lies. It took us a while til we found somewhere to stay that we were happy with and by the time we were ready to hunt for food it had started to rain.
Now, I don't mind a little rain to break up the heat we've had. It also makes me glad that I spent money on a raincoat. But from this point, it rained constantly for over 3 days. CONSTANTLY!!!!!
Vang Vieng is basically in the middle of nowhere, made into something through the tourist industry. All we could do for the next 3 days was eat, drink, play cards and the restaurants either played box sets of Family Guy or Friends. Why nothing else?! So that's what we did. And it got pretty boring. The bridge out of town was flooded and I heard lots of people who had flights the next day out of Vientiane having to re arrange. I guess that's why we left so long to travel Asia. You can't predict things like this. The island in the middle of the river where lots of bars and some accommodation were was just completely flooded. The river was closed for the main reason of visiting Vang Vieng, 'tubing'.
Anyway, yesterday we woke up and it had finally stopped raining. Everyone seemed to be going tubing so we thought we might as well. I'd already bought a 'tubing in Vang Vieng' t shirt so I thought I'd jinxed it and would have felt like I'd missed out without doing it!
So after signing yet another disclaimer in Asia, we headed off to the start, which took me by surprise. I was surrounded by body painted travellers, drinking buckets and blaring music. No wonder people die doing this! Don't drink the lethal buckets, have shots and then get in a river with strong currents flowing fast from the rainy season and about 15m wide. Things such as the 'Death Slide' (the clue is in the title right?) and ziplines etc. don't help.
We watched for 5 minutes then got going. It was 4km to the end. We had life jackets on by the way, but it is optional. Once in I was a lot less nervous. The water seems to be flowing faster when you're watching it, not when you're in it. It was fun but it is a strong river. Within a minute I was miles away from Ben. We'd gotten a tuk tuk up with Thomas and Thomas from Chile so it wasn't just us two tubing at that point. Everyone else managed to steer out of the way but I ended up in a massive wave within minutes! I thought it'd tip me off but it was fun! I guess you forget that you're not swimming, they're big rubber rings that you're in and probably pretty hard to tip. 5 minutes later we were dragged into one of the many riverside bars. They throw water bottles out at you attached to ropes to drag you in, or in my case, a guy just literally dive bombed me and soaked me! Then swam me in. The break was nice and we shared a beer, just enough to stay part of the party without being stupid but people were happily doing shots, buckets and smoking drugs. They used a square bit of wood in the river attached to a tree by rope in front to kind of water ski against the current. It looked pretty easy but I saw someone fall off it and get carried quite far away. Ben had a go and loved it.
Soon we were back in the river again and held onto each other this time. The last 3km were fun. The limestone cliffs you go by are just beautiful. We were reassuringly told by the guy running the tubing that there's a sign where you should get out and if you miss it a man with a boat will come and get you. Anyway, the sign must have washed away in the floods and we saw the boat man having to go after some people. We managed to get to the side of a hotel and the staff helped us out but pulling myself out of that water was so hard. The water was so strong I couldn't pull my legs out! We were wet and muddy but had fun. Been there, done that, got the tshirt :) (And I got shorts too to wear doing it!)
Today the electricity went out in the whole town at 4am and didn't come back on until about 6pm. Great. No air con, hot water, internet. We couldn't even draw out money from the ATM! Another day wasted! So we ended up doing nothing again. At least nothing is cheap!
Tomorrow we have a 6 hour bus to Luang Prabang which is another world heritage site and more traditional and bigger. I'm excited to do things!
- comments
Dad I'm glad you tell me about the dangerous bits (bandits, disclaimers) AFTER the event!x