Vang Vieng

As soon as the bus started winding up into the mountains, I knew something was off. I never get motion sickness and I was starting to get extremely noxious. I took a nap upon arrival in Vang Vieng and just had a normal dinner and some drinks. The next morning, I woke up at 6 AM feeling awful. My stomach was killing me and I couldn’t keep anything inside. I stayed in bed for the next 2 days at the mercy of whatever HBO decided to play at that time. I finally got out of bed after two days (not counting trips to the toilet) and checked into a more fun hostel.

I have been hearing about this town and the tubing for the past 6 months, but it is kind of useless sober. Its main attraction is that you can go tubing on the river and get drinks at all the riverside bars. Then, you can drunkenly rope swing in or dance around to overly loud house music. Its actually way cooler than it sounds. It is like a free-for-all. They rent you a tube and bring you to the top of the river where there are tons of bars and everybody is cool and they all have different music and cheap drinks and you can float or swim between them.

Its not all perfect. The scene is a little druggy. I mean there is literally a guy on a riverbank that you float to and he’ll sell you a joint. There are some slight rapids and shallow rocks. I saw lots of people limping. There are like zero Laos people there, only farang (foreigners). Also, the ladyboys here aren’t fooling anyone.

I tried to see the other non-boozing or tubing sights in town. I rented a bicycle and rode 15km to see some caves. When I pulled off the road, and paying my 25 cent toll for using the bamboo bridge, I was confronted with a sign. I could go left and an “amazing” cave or go right and see a “big and nice” cave. Now, I’m no dummy, so I went for amazing. It was mostly just dark.