Vang Vieng - Tubing

Vang Vieng town centre

I arrived in Vang Vieng two nights ago. Another journey, another old bus but I made it safely. The trip involved going around lots of tight mountain roads with cliffs on one side and huge drops on the other. This didn’t deter the driver from driving as fast as possible and overtaking on blind corners. There were a couple of times I had to shut my eyes and just hope we stayed on the road but as I said we made it in one piece.

Vang Vieng is another ‘party’ place but is also home to tubing which I was told is a must do activity. This involves being taken about 4km up stream then sitting in a big rubber ring and floating back to town. The whole trip takes about 60 minutes but littered along the river are many bars playing loud music so this usually takes a lot longer. Each bar has a different attraction to get people in like water slides. The staff at the various bars throw bottles tied to rope to drag you in. Getting everyone from your group to the same bar was a challenge and often involved teamwork.

The river we floated down

I started at 11am with a group of people I’d met at other points on my trips. It was very busy with people exchanging stories of how good it was to not be working and spending the day drinking and floating down a river on a rubber ring. At the second bar I played in a game of football on this sandy pitch with people from all over the world, a few minutes in we got hit by a monsoon but carried on playing. The pitch became a swimming pool but it was great fun (I scored the winning goal!!)

Bridge across the river with cliffs

The rain lasted for about 2 hours but added to the whole strange experience. One of the bars had a waterside which has been dubbed the ‘slide of death’ as rumour has it a few people has not survived it. It was the best slide I’ve ever been on. It shot you out into the river from about 4 metres up and very fast. To make sure it was safe I let this other chap I was with go first (he was a Spurs fan so it’s ok) once I saw he was ok I took that as confirmation that it’s safe.

View from my Balcony

We ended up getting back at around 7pm at which time it was very dark. It was a fantastic day, such a bizarre experience and one of the most fun things I’ve done. The scenery was again amazing with huge cliffs providing the backdrop. Unfortunately I couldn’t take my camera with me due to it not being waterproof but I’ve got some shots from around town.

I’m off to the Laos capital Vientiane later today, as I think you can have too much of a good thing!