Laos: Viang Vien

(Written 8/5/2011)

I've spent the past two days hanging out in Viang Vien in Laos. On the bus ride here I met a group of guys from Scotland who like me are taking a break after graduating from college before starting their jobs in the fall. We ended up hanging out the rest of my time in Viang Vien. We also picked up a couple of other sole travelers along the way, Kai, from Germany; and Max from Quebec. Viang Vien has a very unique culture of it's own. The town is built for the tourists who come there to tube the river and get drunk. There are bars/restaurants every few yards and for some reason they are ALL playing either Friends or Family guy on their big screen TVs. 

Viang Vien, Laos

Yesterday we went and tubed the river. It was actually a lot o fun if you could get past the fact that it was like spring break Miami style. To start you get a tuck tuck to drive you a couple of miles outside the city and drop you off at the river. From there you bar hop your way back down the river with about 200 other backpackers doing the exact same thing. Each bar has something unique to offer on top of the flowing buckets of whiskey and booming dance music--piers to jump off into the water, face painting, mud volleyball and soccer, waterslides into the river, a big blob where someone sits on it and someone else jumps onto it from the platform above sending the other person catapulting into the water--It took 6 hours just to make it down to the first five bars (about a five min float straight down the river). Since it's pretty hard trying to make it from one side of the river to the other to get to the different bars they've created this system where the local boys throw in ropes with water bottles attached to the end to the tubers and fish them out. It was pretty entertaining to just sit there and watch them work. 

Heading to the River

Sitting on the Deck of the Second Bar

By the time we hit like the fifth bar it was already getting dark so we decided to just float the rest of the way back to Viang Vien without stopping. I was a minute behind everyone else jumping into the water on account of the fact that I needed to put my camera in it's waterproof pouch. By the time I finally jumped in I was a few yards behind the group...Then I realized I had forgotten my glasses by the mud volleyball court. It was all I could do to fight the current and make it back to shore so I could grab them. When I finally made my way back to the water my group was barely in sight. I swam and swam in an effort to catch up with them, by the time I finally got close enough to realize the group I had been chasing really wasn't mine it was too late to do anything about it. So what did I do? I decided to kick back and go with the flow ;) It was just getting dark an you could hear the jungle coming to life. After spending the whole day surrounded by blasting music and drunk people I found peaceful respite in the soothing sounds of nature and the sight of the limestone cliffs towering over me. 

I lay there in peaceful solitude for a few minutes before I realized it was getting harder and harder to see the other groups of tubers about 50 yards in either direction of me. I figured I better make a swim for it and catch up with the group in front of me. I had just reached them when the river split and we all got swept in different directions. Another girl and I managed to stay together and in the midst if the confusion a small local boy swam to our rescue and directed us to the place where we were to get out. 

The whole day was quite the adventure. I couldn't but help think though that it might have been that much

funner if I hadn't been surrounded by people who thought they had to get drunk to have a good time. Don't get me wrong, I really really liked the people I was hanging out with and everyone was very respectful of my decision not to drink. Honestly I couldn't really tell that most the people were drunk, I just always felt like an outsider though.