Tubing in Vang Vieng is something of a backbackers cult out here. As far back as Vietnam the question would regularly pop up "have you been to Laos?" "nope" "NO! well you`ve gotta go Vang Vieng, you HAVE to go tubing!" "oh ok"
Now, after 5 days of 24 hour drinking, marker pen tattoos and hurling myself off swings into water, i can officially say i`ve been and just about come out alive, and yes, it`s as good as people say, and even despite my half body bruise, a busted knee and cuts on my leg " you`ve gotta go to Vang Vieng, you HAVE to go tubing!"
We`d planned 3 nights here, that quickly turned to 4 and just as quickly into 5. We where staying at a hostel called SpicyLaos which not since the chinesebox in Beijing had i stayed in a place with as much of a family-esq atmosphere to it. The moment we arrived after a 2 hour flight and 6 hour bus journey, we were introduced to everyone, seated around a fire and had a take-away delivered to our laps. We spent the night chatting away and when morning came had assembled a fairly large party to tackle the river with.
The basic premise of tubing for those unfamiliar is as follows:
1. Rent tube and jump on tuc tuc to the top of the river and to the entrance to bar one 2. Receive a plethora of free shots (usually taken from the bottle) then top up on beers until the idea of getting on a swing 30 feet above the river seems like a good one. 3. sit in said tube as you float down stream towards the next bar, grabbing onto the bottles attached to the rope to be dragged in by. 4. Carry on drinking until the next ridiculous contraption to fire you into the water is once again, in your own mind `risk free` (to give you an idea of these things, bar 2 has a zipline with a spring at the end so when you hit it, the handles fly back and you go spinning forward, usually with the intention to do a 360 and then hit the water, while more often than not doing more of a 568 and crashing on your neck/shoulder/back. Bar 3 has a cannonball platform and another large swing, something i thought would be more fun if more of us got on it at the same time and almost resulted in the losing of something very precious to me after landing with my legs spread. Bar 4 has a mud-pit/pool, and 5 (or that might of been 6, maybe 7) has the now infamous death slide, named for a very obvious reason)
These basic steps were repeated for 4 days straight, sometimes we played games, sometimes swapping beers for buckets, but the basic premise always remained the same. I wasn`t even in a state to take pictures, everything you see here and on flickr has basically just been pillaged from laurens camera.
I had such an amazing time here. Granted it wasn`t exactly cultural but i`ve been out long enough now to justify a little break, my bodies ruined but thankfully we`re off to Luang prabang for some much needed rest. One more day of this and i think it could of been the last you`d hear from me.
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