Vang Vieng: tubing in the Nam Song river, whisky buckets and breathtaking mountain views.
After an exhausting, bumpy ride in a minivan with a Lao driver who had some Lao Lao mid journey, the eight of us finally arrived to Vang Vieng. As always, they dropped us off at the bus station so we'd have to take a tuktuk into town. After checking out couple places from my guidebook we decided against them and kept walking down the main strip running parallel to the river. Finally, we decided on bungalows which had an absolutely amazing view from the lounge area behind them. It seemed like the world was unraveling in front of you as you sat there.
When we headed out for dinner that night, the delicious smells of a local BBQ place lured us in. We had a feast there! They brought two buckets of hot coal and put an upside down metal bowl with a bunch of ridges. That was where we cooked our different pieces of meat along with boiling some vegetable on the outsides of the cooking dome. We had a plate of pork, chicken and we were trying the local flavor of the water buffalo which roam in the fields more than cows in some areas. It must have been a hundred degrees at the table because or the hot coal, and the spices that we were adding to the food. It was a great place to eat, too bad Federico missed it because he was still feeling sick. That night we ended up hanging in the covered outdoor lounge enjoying the crazy rain storm that was going on around us.
The next day was our tubing adventure. After getting breakfast we headed out to rent out tubes and got on the road in a tuktuk which took us to the beginning of the beautiful disaster that our day was going to be.
We got on a boat to be taken another side of the river and a bar which was our first stop. We were dropped off couple minutes after with our tubes in tow. We were greeted by some welcome shots of Tiger whisky, smooth and mellon. Then bought a couple of whisky buckets to share with everyone. The music was good and the people seemed to have a nice vibe. There was a volleyball court so I had my eye on that. Later on Miguel and I started a game with another group of people from The UK. It was an ok game because people weren't that good so not too many back and forth volleys happened. It was fun to play even a little though. That bar was the beginning of our drunken adventure. We left after a couple of hours and got in our tubes to float down the river and hit the next bar. We all waiting for everyone to get in the water and we floated down the river holding hands, all eight of us. It was so fun, we were all laughing and splashing and people were clapping and cheering towards our silliness of stretching out across the width of the river. The next bar also had the customary free welcome shots, yet it looked like it was pretty dead there. So we did what we do best; we started the party there! There were whisky buckets, water fights and laughter as we splashed around and danced, we danced and felt like we were on top of the world. The pictures we were taking we're so awesome. Many more people came and it began to look like a scene out of the crazy parties people have on boats in music videos. It was such a blast. It was perfect. When we left this bar, we floated down the river skipping a couple bars on the way and then stopping at a small bar on the left bank of the river. The ropes were thrown in the water to reel us in and get us up to the bar. This bar also had free shots. We had some snacks there and danced a little bit. We thought we lost Miguel somewhere for a while but he was safely recovered after walking away to talk to some other Spanish guys he met. It was all good. Poor Sara was losing her mind with worry. But it was all ok. As we were going down to the dock to get our tubes, we realized that there weren't enough, so a couple of us swam across tubeless. The current wasn't making it an easy float but we made it across and it was a nice swim. This next bar had all kinds of slides going into the river and rope swings. I tried all of them along with couple others. It was so fun! At that point we had slowed down with the buckets so we were riding the wave of the group energy and just loving life. Unfortunately, we think that that was the bar where we lost Federico's waterproof camera which we were using all day. As much as that was a lame thing to happen, we all had an unforgettable day. We ended the tubing by just peacefully floating down the river with the most amazing scenery unfolding in front of us. Mountains and lush forests surrounding the river path instantly made me quiet and at peace. The world was my oyster and I was eating it by handfuls.
When we finally decided to stop and get out of the river, we had floated down quite far so we had to take a tuktuk back. Plus we were cold, drunk and just wanted to get back to our place. After changing out of our bathing suits and showering, we all headed into town for dinner. Although still with quite a strong buzz going, we were pretty tired. As we were walking down the street, back towards our bungalows, we were approached by the bar promoters who were advertising free buckets at the Sunset bar which was a place I wanted to check out because it was on a separate island connecting by a bridge to the main town. So after long negotiations about whether we all wanted to go or not, everyone joined in and we headed across the bridge to the self proclaimed party island. When we got there, we received our free whisky buckets and walked across the open air bar/lounge setup. The music was good and everyone was having a grand old time. They ended up lighting a big ring on fire and people started jumping through it. None of us did, especially after watching a couple people stumble while jumping and nearly catching on fire. A few minutes later it started raining, slowly, just a few drops. But soon that light rain turned into a complete downpour. Everyone ran to hide under the few roofs that were available but the music kept going and people kept dancing. Although we were under a roof, the rain was coming from every directions getting everyone wet anyways. So I decided to just start dancing under the rain and so did many other people. It turned into a big dancing party in the rain. I felt so free just letting go and being consumed by the rain and the hypnotic sounds of the music. That ended up being a late night with a headache filled morning unfortunately. But, you have to pay the price I guess. It was an unforgettable day and night with some amazing people.
The next day was the bittersweet departure of half of our group. Fernando and Mariana and Federico and Santiago, were all taking a bus to Hanoi, Vietnam that morning. Little did they know, that the bus journey which was advertised to be 17 hours at the time of purchasing tickets, turned out to be a grueling 32 hour trip on a regular, not a sleeper bus, as promised. So Santiago and Federico made it to Hanoi, although exhausted and drained, they made it. Whereas Mariana and Fernando decided to not take the bus all the way because of the scam that they all became victims of. They too got to Hanoi eventually though, so all is good. Right now our group is scattered all over the place. I am in Cambodia, heading to Phnom Penh now, first day in the country. Raquel I left behind in the 4000 Islands in the southernmost part of Laos. Sara and Miguel had just left Siem Reap and are in Battambang, Cambodia. Santiago is in central Vietnam and Federico isn't even in Asia anymore, he's back in New Zealand. So we are all scattered now, yet the amazing memories created together will always be with us. We will meet again, somewhere in the world.
So back in Vang Vieng, there were four of us left; Sara and Miguel and Raquel and I. The same day as everyone left, we decided to go explore the other side of the river and the caves that are there, on foot. But Spanish time and Lao time got to us and we didn't leave until quite late in the afternoon. Although the walk was nice and scenic and we got to see the more relaxed and village side of Vang Vieng, the entrance to the caves was already closed when we got there. Oh and we also acquired a new person to add to our quartet, Yoann from France who has been traveling and living in different parts of the world for the past seven years and was soon coming home. So that day, we didn't accomplish much in terms of sightseeing but we had a nice relaxing day.
The next day we all rented bicycles and headed out to the far away caves and lagoons. As we quickly found out, we were not prepared for cave climbing since we were all in flip flops and clothing that really was only meant to be rolling around at a sandy beach. But we made it through creepy caves and a 68 year old guide who was running up hills leading up to the caves, as if he was a teenager. As we were getting out of breath and sweating in buckets, he was urging us to move faster and he was without one bead of sweat. Incredible. Our day ended in a lagoon where there was a rope swing for jumping in the water as well as a perfectly situated tree which allowed us to get to the top and jump. It was a great day spent riding bicycles, seeing caves, saying 'Sabaidee!' to locals in villages we were passing and overall enjoying life.
The next day was all of our departure to Vientiane, the next chapter of the journey through Laos.
When we headed out for dinner that night, the delicious smells of a local BBQ place lured us in. We had a feast there! They brought two buckets of hot coal and put an upside down metal bowl with a bunch of ridges. That was where we cooked our different pieces of meat along with boiling some vegetable on the outsides of the cooking dome. We had a plate of pork, chicken and we were trying the local flavor of the water buffalo which roam in the fields more than cows in some areas. It must have been a hundred degrees at the table because or the hot coal, and the spices that we were adding to the food. It was a great place to eat, too bad Federico missed it because he was still feeling sick. That night we ended up hanging in the covered outdoor lounge enjoying the crazy rain storm that was going on around us.
The next day was our tubing adventure. After getting breakfast we headed out to rent out tubes and got on the road in a tuktuk which took us to the beginning of the beautiful disaster that our day was going to be.
We got on a boat to be taken another side of the river and a bar which was our first stop. We were dropped off couple minutes after with our tubes in tow. We were greeted by some welcome shots of Tiger whisky, smooth and mellon. Then bought a couple of whisky buckets to share with everyone. The music was good and the people seemed to have a nice vibe. There was a volleyball court so I had my eye on that. Later on Miguel and I started a game with another group of people from The UK. It was an ok game because people weren't that good so not too many back and forth volleys happened. It was fun to play even a little though. That bar was the beginning of our drunken adventure. We left after a couple of hours and got in our tubes to float down the river and hit the next bar. We all waiting for everyone to get in the water and we floated down the river holding hands, all eight of us. It was so fun, we were all laughing and splashing and people were clapping and cheering towards our silliness of stretching out across the width of the river. The next bar also had the customary free welcome shots, yet it looked like it was pretty dead there. So we did what we do best; we started the party there! There were whisky buckets, water fights and laughter as we splashed around and danced, we danced and felt like we were on top of the world. The pictures we were taking we're so awesome. Many more people came and it began to look like a scene out of the crazy parties people have on boats in music videos. It was such a blast. It was perfect. When we left this bar, we floated down the river skipping a couple bars on the way and then stopping at a small bar on the left bank of the river. The ropes were thrown in the water to reel us in and get us up to the bar. This bar also had free shots. We had some snacks there and danced a little bit. We thought we lost Miguel somewhere for a while but he was safely recovered after walking away to talk to some other Spanish guys he met. It was all good. Poor Sara was losing her mind with worry. But it was all ok. As we were going down to the dock to get our tubes, we realized that there weren't enough, so a couple of us swam across tubeless. The current wasn't making it an easy float but we made it across and it was a nice swim. This next bar had all kinds of slides going into the river and rope swings. I tried all of them along with couple others. It was so fun! At that point we had slowed down with the buckets so we were riding the wave of the group energy and just loving life. Unfortunately, we think that that was the bar where we lost Federico's waterproof camera which we were using all day. As much as that was a lame thing to happen, we all had an unforgettable day. We ended the tubing by just peacefully floating down the river with the most amazing scenery unfolding in front of us. Mountains and lush forests surrounding the river path instantly made me quiet and at peace. The world was my oyster and I was eating it by handfuls.
When we finally decided to stop and get out of the river, we had floated down quite far so we had to take a tuktuk back. Plus we were cold, drunk and just wanted to get back to our place. After changing out of our bathing suits and showering, we all headed into town for dinner. Although still with quite a strong buzz going, we were pretty tired. As we were walking down the street, back towards our bungalows, we were approached by the bar promoters who were advertising free buckets at the Sunset bar which was a place I wanted to check out because it was on a separate island connecting by a bridge to the main town. So after long negotiations about whether we all wanted to go or not, everyone joined in and we headed across the bridge to the self proclaimed party island. When we got there, we received our free whisky buckets and walked across the open air bar/lounge setup. The music was good and everyone was having a grand old time. They ended up lighting a big ring on fire and people started jumping through it. None of us did, especially after watching a couple people stumble while jumping and nearly catching on fire. A few minutes later it started raining, slowly, just a few drops. But soon that light rain turned into a complete downpour. Everyone ran to hide under the few roofs that were available but the music kept going and people kept dancing. Although we were under a roof, the rain was coming from every directions getting everyone wet anyways. So I decided to just start dancing under the rain and so did many other people. It turned into a big dancing party in the rain. I felt so free just letting go and being consumed by the rain and the hypnotic sounds of the music. That ended up being a late night with a headache filled morning unfortunately. But, you have to pay the price I guess. It was an unforgettable day and night with some amazing people.
The next day was the bittersweet departure of half of our group. Fernando and Mariana and Federico and Santiago, were all taking a bus to Hanoi, Vietnam that morning. Little did they know, that the bus journey which was advertised to be 17 hours at the time of purchasing tickets, turned out to be a grueling 32 hour trip on a regular, not a sleeper bus, as promised. So Santiago and Federico made it to Hanoi, although exhausted and drained, they made it. Whereas Mariana and Fernando decided to not take the bus all the way because of the scam that they all became victims of. They too got to Hanoi eventually though, so all is good. Right now our group is scattered all over the place. I am in Cambodia, heading to Phnom Penh now, first day in the country. Raquel I left behind in the 4000 Islands in the southernmost part of Laos. Sara and Miguel had just left Siem Reap and are in Battambang, Cambodia. Santiago is in central Vietnam and Federico isn't even in Asia anymore, he's back in New Zealand. So we are all scattered now, yet the amazing memories created together will always be with us. We will meet again, somewhere in the world.
So back in Vang Vieng, there were four of us left; Sara and Miguel and Raquel and I. The same day as everyone left, we decided to go explore the other side of the river and the caves that are there, on foot. But Spanish time and Lao time got to us and we didn't leave until quite late in the afternoon. Although the walk was nice and scenic and we got to see the more relaxed and village side of Vang Vieng, the entrance to the caves was already closed when we got there. Oh and we also acquired a new person to add to our quartet, Yoann from France who has been traveling and living in different parts of the world for the past seven years and was soon coming home. So that day, we didn't accomplish much in terms of sightseeing but we had a nice relaxing day.
The next day we all rented bicycles and headed out to the far away caves and lagoons. As we quickly found out, we were not prepared for cave climbing since we were all in flip flops and clothing that really was only meant to be rolling around at a sandy beach. But we made it through creepy caves and a 68 year old guide who was running up hills leading up to the caves, as if he was a teenager. As we were getting out of breath and sweating in buckets, he was urging us to move faster and he was without one bead of sweat. Incredible. Our day ended in a lagoon where there was a rope swing for jumping in the water as well as a perfectly situated tree which allowed us to get to the top and jump. It was a great day spent riding bicycles, seeing caves, saying 'Sabaidee!' to locals in villages we were passing and overall enjoying life.
The next day was all of our departure to Vientiane, the next chapter of the journey through Laos.
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