2011-11-24
Vang Vieng is an anchor on the hedonist backpacker circuit along with Koh Phangan and Koh Phi Phi. It's actually a bit embarrassing to see a small Laotian town completely overrun by drunk western (mostly British) 20-somethings. All the restaurants have several TVs constantly playing episodes of either Friends or Family Guy, which is quite surreal. The main draw of Vang Vieng is tubing, but it's actually much more than that, really more of a river party bar crawl. We were given innertubes and shuttled up the river to the starting point, which also happened to be the location of the first bar. After getting a drink at that bar, we got in the water and started floating. Workers from bars on the river banks threw us ropes and pulled us to shore if we held on. Each bar had its own theme, such as beach volleyball, high dives, water slides, rope swings, slingshots, and hammocks. We did them all and had an absolute blast. It was an experience equally as unique as the Full Moon Party on Koh Phangan and equally as memorable.
Instead of taking the bumpy bus all the way to our next destination, Vientiane, we decided to kayak part of it. We were bused to the river and then bused the rest of the way to the city when we were done. It was a enjoyable and leisurely, but not overly spectacular ride and at lunch I did a couple of cliff jumps from slightly lower than in Dalat.