The Backwards Life
  • Home
  • TravelBlog
  • Where in the world am I?
  • Message Me

Vang Vieng: Dump This Way, Adult Playground That Way

3/22/2012

0 Comments

 
If there was an award for the country with the worst infrastructure, Laos would get five gold stars. The roads are a masterpiece of dirt and rock winding its way through the jungle mountains just wide enough for one and a half cars to pass. The towns are a little better, boasting ten yard bursts of pavement between another hundred yards of dirt, the intermittent bouncing onto and off of pavement is enough to jar your brains out, not to mention the continuous curves that could make anyone carsick. Combine that with the zooish policies of the bus companies and you've got a full bred circus.

Everything that the bus company spews out is complete bogus. The ride will take four hours: false, there will be a bathroom on board: false, the bus is air conditioned: false!

I found myself en route to Vang Vieng stuck on a four turned eight hour ride, sweating profusely, trying to relieve my throbbing head on a bus that was clearly not designed for these roads.

Rachel and I finally pulled into the town, which looked more like a local dump than one of the famed "must sees" outlined in all travel guides. It was an arena of dirt--dirt roads, dirt fields, dirt hills--all of which fluttered a few feet above ground to leave you with perfectly bronzed skin and lungs after a short jaunt through the center.

It was a question of fight or flight and the inherent answer was easy, but we were determined to stick it out and find the true gems of Vang Vieng, which we knew were lurking in the nearby hills. This town is a backpackers dream. Well, maybe not the town itself, but the nearby Nam Song River that runs through is. Every morning, backpackers rise with one thing on the mind, get an inner tube and get to the river. The tubing is a four kilometer stretch of river lined with janky bamboo bars complete with zip lines, slides, dive platforms and rope swings all leading into the water. While I'm not one for drinking, the average tourist is well schmammered within a few stops and somewhere around 22 people die a year from sheer alcohol related stupidity.

I was skeptical at first, but had to see what this whole tubing thing was about. I decked myself out in Vang Vieng's finest tubing attire, hot pink shorts and my waterproof money purse purchased from the local general store, and hit the river. Rachel and I ran into ten people from the slow boat at the first bar and joined them for the day's float. The bars were blasting Rihanna remixes and old school Blink 185, and I laughed at the old Laotian ladies, hunchbacked with canes in hand, siting below the bar bobbing their heads to the beat.

As we tubed downstream locals would throw water bottles attached to a rope at us and reel the whole lot of us into their riverside bar. I cared less about the alcohol and was really enamored with the river playground--rope swings galore, yes please! I caught my mind wandering off as I sat dangling my feet in the water and gazing at the massive flatirons jetting up hundreds of feet along the shore. Exotic trees and vines wound their way up along the rock and green moss draped from every branch. The top of the pinnacles were hidden in dense fog, making me think I was nothing short of residing in a Disney movie. This place was truly beautiful. 

I returned from my day on the river with a collection of bracelets from each bar we stopped at snaking up my arm, and several new spray painted on tattoos, both essential backpacker badges for surviving tubing.

Ok, I have to admit, this dump of a town was growing on me, if anything the playground had definitely won me over.
Picture
Me and Rachel decked out in tubing gear ready for a big day on the river!
Picture
Majestic cliffs rising from the outskirts of town
Picture
Vang Vieng; complete with gravel road, dusty air and Walt Disney style cliffs
0 Comments

    “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.”
    –Cesare Pavese

    Archives

    April 2013
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011

    Categories

    All
    Africa
    Airport
    Algarve
    Algeciras
    America
    Amsterdam
    Angkor Wat
    Arrabida
    Asia
    Australia
    Australian Culture
    Bangkok
    Barcelona
    Bari
    Belvedere
    Bethlehem
    Bikes
    Bogan
    Borozo
    Bosphorous
    Budapest
    Bus
    Cafe
    Cambodia
    Camel
    Cascades D'Ouzoud
    Cascais
    Cave
    Chiang Mai
    Christmas
    Coffee
    Communism
    Cooking
    Couchsurfing
    Croatia
    Cycling
    Czech Republic
    Departure
    Design
    Diving
    Dubrovnik
    Ely
    Ember Mitchell
    Employment In Australia
    Ephasus
    Essaouira
    Favorite Places
    Ferry
    Fez
    Fish
    Food
    Freak Out!
    Genocide
    Gibraltar
    Granada
    Greece
    Halong Bay
    Hanoi
    Helsinki
    Hitchhiking
    Hmong
    House Of Terror
    Hungary
    Hutyee Boat
    Ilmer
    Imagination
    Israel
    Istanbul
    Italy
    Itinerary
    Job Searching
    Jordan
    Koh Lanta
    Koh Tao
    Kos
    Kuang Si Falls
    Ladyboys
    Laos
    Lisbon
    Lonely Planet
    Luang Prabang
    Malaga
    Marrakech
    Meditation
    Mekong River
    Melbourne
    Merzouga
    Middle East
    Misspellings
    Mom
    Monk
    Monkey
    Morocco
    Mosque
    Netherlands
    Oia
    One Month
    Online Dating
    Pai
    Palestine
    Petrodvortes
    Phnom Penh
    Pizza
    Portugal
    Prague
    Rip Off
    Rosa Parks
    Rude
    Russia
    Ruud
    Saint Petersburg
    Sam
    Santorini
    Sapa
    Scam
    Seattle
    Selcuk
    Seven Months
    Sevilla
    Shopping
    Siem Reap
    Similan Islands
    Slow Boat
    Spain
    Split
    Stockholm
    Sunset
    Sweden
    Sydney
    Tangier
    Tapas
    Tel Aviv
    Thailand
    Thanksgiving
    Todra Gorge
    Trekking
    Tubing
    Turkey
    Two Months
    Vang Vieng
    Vicks Vaporub
    Vietnam
    Warrnambool
    West Bank
    Western Culture

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.