vang vieng

Amazing view on the bus ride from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng

Our next stop in Laos was a famous little riverside town called Vang Vieng. Ok so maybe it’s only famous on the travellers/backpackers trail but I’d heard enough about it in advance to wonder if I actually wanted to go there. The town is known for travellers arriving en mass, getting drunk and stoned and then floating down the river on tyre inner tubes (and sometimes dying because they are so drunk and/or stoned). You can read a Guardian article about Vang Vieng here, which pretty much sums up what has happened and continues to happen in this once beautiful riverside town.

We had been promised an air-con bus for the supposedly 4-5 hour bus ride from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng. Our complimentary transfer tuk tuk picked us up at the ungodly hour of 6am and took us to the bus station for our 7am bus. We quickly realised that we were taking the local bus rather than the tourist bus (we’d decided not to take the VIP bus so it was probably our own fault…) and the air con turned out to be windows that opened! As all good local buses do, the bus stopped at every opportunity to pick up people and their luggage/goods. I was actually quite glad that we caught the local bus because it felt like the first time we got a closer look at how people in Laos live. The road was winding, of course, and with spectacular views (especially as we narrowly avoided oncoming traffic or skirted too close to the edge of a bend with a sheer drop) as we travelled through rural Laos. About 7.5 hours later we were dropped at the side of the road with our dusty luggage as the only other tourists on the bus (three older women who seemed well-travelled) declared loudly “who would want to get off here?!”.

Vang Vieng (it looks very different during the day compared with at night)

We found ourselves a nice little guest house but quickly decided that going tubing after that bus ride was too much, especially as Anoushca wasn’t feeling well. Becky and I wandered about town that night marvelling at the bars which were ALL showing episodes of Friends or Family Guy (though we did see one showing South Park). Vang Vieng is full of bars and restaurants catering for western backpackers (that’s if you like watching old TV series while stoned/hung over or getting super wasted every night on cheap alcohol). It’s totally bizarre, not very nice (or maybe just not my cup of tea) and I found it actually quite sad that this beautiful little town had been ruined just so western tourists could have some fun.

Reading for tubing at 8.30am!

So we went against the grain and decided to go tubing at 8.30am the next morning. This was partly because we had no choice (the bus to Vientiane left at 1.30pm and we didn’t want to stay any longer than necessary in Vang Vieng) and partly because we thought it might be a bit quieter.

Well, we were the first and only people on the river that morning as all the bars were pretty much shut. We stopped at the Big Slide Bar about 10am (as they seemed to be open) and had a go on their big slide (obviously) and their zip-line. I can’t imagine doing either of these things drunk but we had a lot of fun as it was only us and a couple of tourists from Vietnam who were travelling down the river in a canoe.

Kids playing on the river

As it was dry season the river was very low with hardly any current at all. This meant that in order to catch our bus we pretty much had to paddle with our hands ALL the way down the river and at times even get out and walk on the river bed. It took us about 3.5 hours to get down the river and at the end me and Becky had chafed inner arms from rubbing our arms on the inner tube as we paddled! We were all creamy crackered at the end.

Having the river to ourselves though was amazing! It was so peaceful and the scenery was beautiful (once past the bars) with lush green mountains rising up alongside the river. We saw lots of children playing and families going about their business at the side of the river, something which we wouldn’t have seen if we gone when the bars were open. We also saw lots of water buffalo casually hanging out at the side of the river.

We bought one of those disposable waterproof cameras to capture our adventure. It was lots of fun taking photos but actually quite hard to work out what would appear in the photos when looking through the view finder – we’re all so used to digital cameras these days! We got the photos developed and put onto a CD when we got to Vientiane. They all look like they have been Instagramed!