Hello everyone, this is an entry about our 5 days in Vang Vieng. Here is some background about Vang Vieng. It is the place that many younger travelers go to get have fun. It is kinda like the Laos version of the Americans spring break. The main activity is to rent a tube and then a Tuk Tuk takes you about 8km down the river and drops you off. You are then supposed to tube down the river and stop at anyone (or several) of the bars to drink and then get back on your tube and continue on to the next bar. All the bars have slides, diving boards and swings which you jump into the water at quite high levels. Not the safest day but we heard it was really fun.
We arrived in Vang Vieng at about 7pm, checked into our hotel and went for supper. We were watching all the people (who were returning from tubing) and I think I said to Ashley, “I am not feeling this place. Everybody is walking around with just swim suits on and they are all covered in marker Bar with slide and rope swing
What a bunch of idiots!” Fast forward exactly 24 hours and it was Ashley, me and our 2 new Irish friends…walking around, all covered in marker in just our swim shorts at 7pm.
We got to the river around 1pm, had a drink and floated to the next bar. We arrived at our second destination and there were 2 beer pong tables. Well, I started to like this place. (Mother, don’t worry, the river was quite shallow and slow moving.) We played the 2 Irish guys (David& Massy) and they schooled us. No big deal, onto the next bar. This continued on for awhile. So much fun. I stayed semi sober because of my Maroon badge and narcolepsy but the Irish guys…they went hard.
This went on until about 5:30pm when we realized that we weren’t going to make the end before dark so Ashley somehow convinced a bar owner to drive us back in his boat so we could get in before dark and get our tube deposit back. It worked and we made it back safely.
That night we went out for supper and then to a bar until about 2:30am. It was really fun and we were proud because we had managed to outlast the Irish boys.The next day was spent recovering.
The second day of tubing, we just decided to swim between bars…this is very common in Vang Vieng as you save on the cost of the tubes which are just a hassle anyway because everyone steals each others Gord’s smashed up face.
The day started the same, one bar…swim to the next…and so on. When we got to our last bar, we decided to share a bucket. A bucket is literally a kids sand pail filled with whatever you want. We chose the Mojito bucket. This must have made us brave because we decided to go onto this swing type thing that flings from a 25 foot podium and into the water. We were scared but we did it and it was really fun. We swam back to the shore finished our bucket and off to the tuk tuk.
On our way there, you had to cross this ditch by climbing up about 4 steps, walk along this plank and then down 4 steps. I remember walking across the plank and then pow, I was on my face in the ditch. I must have slipped off and apparently I landed on my face! I don’t really remember it because I was slightly concussed. From how I felt the next day, I would venture to guess that the center of my face took 70% the impact and my left thumb took the other 30%. Thankfully I was travelling with a nurse and she knew what to do and I am going to make a full recovery. I was actually pretty lucky because I didn’t break any teeth…I would have had to get my father out of retirement to help out his 32 year old, unemployed son.(My parents are gleeming with pride!)
Needless to say, that was our last tubing day. Day four was spent recovering and Polysporne-ing my face.
Today we left Vang Vieng and took a mini bus (minivan) to Luang Prabang. it was 170kms and took us 6.5 hours. No bad bus stories just crazy roads through the mountains. Our bus driver never got passed once. Great views but motion sickness, Hello!

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