Down the Tubes
Trip Start
Jul 06, 2010
1
36
54
Trip End
Jun 28, 2011
Where I stayed
Viengsavanh Guest House
Vang Vieng, Viangchan, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Sunday, January 30, 2011
We arrived in Vang Vieng and immediately realized that we were too old for this town. The town has been taken over by 18 - 25 yr old backpackers wandering around in swim suits, bare feet (gross!), wasted and/or stoned out of their minds. Although Garry was quite impressed with the continual re-runs of Family Guy and Friends being played at all the restaurants.
Why all this madness you ask? Well, Vang Vieng is a popular destination on the "backpacker trail" for tubing down the Nam Song river. When we first heard about it, we were pretty excited - envisioning the Bow river in Calgary.....except we hadn't expected the water to be the colour of coffee, open-air bars selling buckets of Laos whiskey lining the river banks and amusement park like swings and slides that are anything but "safe".
But hey, we aren't THAT old, so after a serious pep talk we rented 2 inner tubes and headed to the tubing drop-off point. Apparently it takes 3 big beer laos before Wendy will even consider getting in that brown water - and after beer 4 she forgot all about the fact she wasn't wearing a life jacket. But no amount of beer was enough for either of us to risk life and limb on those scary swings and slides. Those kids are crazy! Apparently two people have died this year already on those stupid things.
We aren't going to lie, the partying was pretty fun and by 2:30 we found ourselves only at the 3rd bar on the river bank. We now realized why most people have to pay a tuk-tuk driver to take them home. So we decided to pick up the pace. There was no way we were going to lose our tube deposit for bringing the darn things back late. Not too mention paying a tuk-tuk to bring us back. We could just imagine the outrageous price they would demand. So we decided to skip a few bars and headed further down the river.....but there are LOTS of bars and by 4pm we still hadn't gotten very far. It was now crunch time - so we had to take our beer "to-go". We had no choice! So we paddled like mad holding our beer in between our legs and made a mad dash for the finish line. At 5:35pm we finally made it back to town and just like the other 18-25 yr olds, we staggered through town wasted, dragging our inner tubes behind us back to the rental shop. Although to our credit we still had our shoes on!
Before we passed out at 9pm (we just couldn't keep up with the kids) our enthusiasm was high and we had convinced ourselves that we would get up and do it all over again...yeah right. When we woke up, we felt broken. We were amazed at how sore our arms were from paddling an inner tube. We went for massages instead. After that we went back to the room for 10 mins to change and came back out to find Wendy's shoes had been stolen. Who steals shoes? We figured that we'd never see those flip flops again....but a few hours later we encountered a guy wearing them around the guesthouse. First of all they are ladies shoes and didn't fit him. Second of all, you're not suppose to wear shoes inside the guest house which is why Wendy's shoes were outside to begin with. Did he take off his own shoes to put on Wendy's shoes to wear inside the guesthouse? When confronted all he said was "sorry". What? Sorry you got caught stealing Wendy's shoes? After a good scrubbing and disinfecting, Wendy was finally able to bring herself to put her flip flops on again. Gross! What is wrong with people?
Comments
... Why didn't you do the swings?! They're awesome... Hmm, when we went tubing the water was surpricingly clean - blue as any sea to be honest. But I guess not everyone is as lucky.
Nice to hear from you again. Me and Joel's fine - but cold. Minus here in China... Don't forget Konlor cave if you can make it. It's brilliant, and you even get life jackets!!!
Take care
Why didn't we try the swings? Why didn't you bring a jacket to China? :)