Tubing in the Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng is a small town in Central Northern Laos by the Namsong River, seemingly only developed to support the growing number of tourists stopping by for “Tubing”.

The concept is basic, get a big rubber ring (the inner tube from a large tyre), jump in the river and float down stream. Back in 2002, there was only a few guys selling beers from milk cretes on the river banks. Now, there are several full-blown bars. Bamboo constructions with dance floors, hammocks, mud pits and jumping platforms and zip wires to enter the river! Hence, all the singlets and t-shirts with the logo of “Tubing in the Vang Vieng”. (I’m sure that’s an unnecessary ‘the’ in there).

Vang vieng town itself is a sort of lazy mix of Khao San Road and Koh Phan Ngan, mostly comprising of restaurants with lounges showing either Friends or Family Guy 24-7. It’s a little sad really, I mean I love Friends & Family Guy, but If I wanted to sit around watching TV I could stay at home. And with so many places offering the same deal, we can only assume that the locals assume this is what Westerners want, and seeing the business they get you can’t really argue.

However, I can’t deny that on the first day, having no access to cash because Barclays are idiots, and still recovering from the mega bus ride, It helped me kill many hours on very little Kip until the boys arrived and we could check in.

Rob and Tommy met a couple of other English lads on the bus and when we went for food, the first thing Pete (English Pete) asks is “are you Crazy Pete?” Haha, what have Rob and Tommy been saying about me? Rob gave me a look like “we didn’t say anything!”. Apparently there were stories about a crazy Aussie called pete running around South East Asia… I haven’t been that crazy…yet..

Vang Vieng is also like Koh Phan Ngan in that I have never seen so many injured people. Everyone is wearing bandages and limping. Except this time its not drunken moto action causing it, its drunken tubing! Mum you might want to skip this next bit.

Tubing is a cocktail of alcohol, a fast flowing river, rocks, swings, boiling heat with a fast fading sun set, the high quality safety standards of South East Asia, high strength antibiotics (malaria tablets) and apparently there’s even poisonous snakes (and diseases?) in the river! Not to mention that only weeks before the river was flooded, taking out several of the bars completely with it. All logic says “Don’t Do This!!”. But of course, you do it anyways

People do actually die on this river, seriously. There are always stories going around, most recently a girl that came off the slide badly and hit her head on rocks. If you get a serious injury you better hope you can make it back to Bangkok because you won’t get much help in Laos. But most of the injuries, and fatalities, come down to stupid drunken behaviour. There’s no western safety barrier here, if your legless and decide you want to do the swing, they’ll let you. If you screw up, tough shit. So as long as you don’t get absolutely annihilated before hitting the river, you should be fine. Make sure your with a few others too.

OK Mum continue reading again. The first day the boys where here Rob was feeling a bit shite from the bus ride, as I was, but the next day we hit the bars and just swam to the first few. You don’t even need to actually tube as the 5 main bars are all at the start and easily walkable or swimmable. The next day we hired the tubes, 60,000 Kip plus 50,000 deposit. We lost 20,000 of that deposit for returning them late but its not worth rushing for it!

At the 2nd bar some of the westerners promoting the place had blue and red dye in bottles and proceeded to spray us all over! So my shorts are ruined and I look like I’ve been shot! haha. At the last one before hitting the river, English Pete fancied an arm wrestle with this American dude. He was a UNIT! Apparently he plays baseball and NFL or something. We’ll just pretend Pete won.

We then floated down the Nam Song for about 2hrs back towards town. Rob and I seemed to take off ahead of Tommy. When we were near the end, a few kids started swimming out to us. I thought they wanted a ride to the finish but then they started hauling us to the shore! Of course when we got in they asked for some cash. Usually I don’t give any money to kids because it only keeps them out of school, but they had already done the work and theres much worse things they could be doing than playing in the water and talking to farang so we gave them 10 and 15,000 each.

Ode to Rob & Tommy »« Mission Laos: Chiang Mai to Vang Vieng