After leaving Luang Prabang we went south the Vang Vieng, which is a major tourist destination in Laos for mostly the wrong reasons… although one of the most fun stops it’s definitely hard to see the benefits of tourism that exists only because our own countries would never allow it. The draw is tubing 4 km down the river in old tractor tubes, but its the booze, drugs, and music make it just one big crazy party. Picture the pool crawl but with unlimited exhibition rides minus the safety standards(someone supposedly died a few weeks ago on one of the slides). Locals were waiting at the starting bridge handing out shots, and with bars lining both sides of the river every 40 ft or so for the majority of the journey. It’s not hard to see how things can go wrong if you’re not careful. Every bar has rope swings, zip lines, slides, and all sorts of other fun ways off cooling off while waiting for your next drink. Can’t say we have any pictures or videos as I figured getting drunk and tubing all day would be the end of my camera, but I can assure you that the rope swings were intense and I don’t think I have ever bruised my ass before from so many elevated water landings.
Although the town was a zoo, its location was picturesque with the sun setting everyday behind the lime stone cliffs lining the far side of the river. After our day of tubing we decided to rent bicycles to explore the surrounding country side. Only a few minutes from the town you were immersed back into a rural Lao country side with beautiful scenery and plenty of caves and swimming holes to explore.
Marilyn and I attempted to venture into a cave but “the fear” got the better of us and we only made it a few meters into the darkness. Although I did go into a missive cave with some other friends we had met the day before tubing and it was scary but fun. We ended up going for about 20 minutes into an enormous caver before deciding to turn back, couldn’t even venture a guess as to how far back it went.
Another day we hiked up one of the surrounding mountains and were treated with spectacular views of the surrounding country side and surrounding mountains. They didn’t mess around when they cut the trail up the mountain, it went straight up the side and was definitely a good work out, especially in the heat. “the guide book says it takes 30 minutes to the summit, well we’ll take 5 minutes off that…” that quote came to mind after talking to another tourist who had climbed the route, bonus points for anyone who can name what movie that is from.
We are heading north now making our way to the boarder to enter Vietnam. We arrived in Nong Khiaw today and are staying in a little bungalow over looking the river. A change of pace from Vang Vieng to say the least.
We see these things every where and I get such a kick out of them, just trotting along on my mechanical horse…
I guess we’ll never know what the Lao have against the French horn.
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