So, Vang Vieng...........
Ville and I had every intention of leaving Vientiane for Vang Vieng at 10am, which was what our bus ticket said. However, you do learn very quickly that here in Laos, everything happens on a different time frame. So for no apparent reason, we left at 11.30am instead. Bizarre....
Having heard from guide books, the internet and fellow travellers that Vang Vieng is a bit of a dead end town filled with dead end back packer bars constantly playing dead end re-runs of friends/family guy/the simpsons, we decided to stay out of town instead. We headed to a place called the Organic Farm, which was around 4k's out of town situated right next to the Nam Song river. When we arrived the place looked quite good, very quiet and very picturesque. The owner showed us to our rooms, which were $5US a night, and then we decided to sit down and have some lunch at the restaurant.
While waiting for our food, some very hippy looking young backpackers came into the restaurant and sat down next to us. They were talking about the work they had done on the farm ie: cleaning the goats house, farming etc etc, so me and Ville presumed they must live and work at the farm. After a little while, one of the hippy kids came over to us to say hello and asked when we got there, where we were from etc etc etc.
Then he comes out with "So, you guys will be doing some volunteer work on the farm while your here??"
(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
It took all of my composure not to spit my drink everywhere and start laughing hysterically.
One look at Ville told me he was thinking the same thing: "Volunteer? On a farm? We are on holiday!!!!!!"
As politely as we could, we declined the young mans offer, and decided then and there that we would have to check out first thing in the morning and find a guest house in the city.
The next day signified the beggining of Lao New Year, which is a three day new year celebration in which almost all of Laos shuts down and its one big party in every corner of the country. Vang Vieng was no exception. All the locals walked around wearing super bright Hawaiian Shirts, and could be seen drinking Beerlao as early as 8.30am. However, the big fun of Laos New Year is not the drinking, dressing up and dancing. No no no, its all about how many western tourists you can soak with water for the three days! No joke, you couldn't walk any more than 5 meters without some random child comming out of no where with a huge bucket of water to throw at you. Everyone was armed with water pistols, water bombs, garden hoses and buckets. This is a great time of year to visit Laos, however, make sure you have come with a sense of humor and a dry pack to protect your valuables....!!
At about 11am, we started our first day of tubing. Tubing is what Vang Vieng is famous for, and to be honest with you, theres not a hell of alot else to do here except tube. For those of you who are unaware, Tubing is sitting in a giant tractor tyer inner tube and floating down 4k's of water. The fun part however is stopping off at the many makeshift bars en route to drink, eat and fly off giant rope swings.
Our first tubing day ended up being rather eventuful. At our 5th stop, a young lao boy started squirting me with a water pistol, so I chased him with my water bottle. As I ran, the lovely safe and stable bamboo balcony I was running on snapped from underneath me and I went flying through the floor. Lucky for me, I had had quite a few drinks so didn't feel much pain, and found it rather hillarious....which even now it still was quite funny. However, in hindsight, it could have been a lot worse. It was around a 7 meter drop from the balcony down to some rocks and then the river, lucky for me and managed to pull myself back through before any more damage was done. I finished up with a very cut, bruised and swallow right leg, and a few cuts up my right arm. I do wish someone had of got a picture or a video though, it was pretty funny....!!
The next day we decided to hire some push bikes and went riding through the country side of Vang Vieng, which is much prettier than the town its self. All up we probably rode for about 15k's, going down some dirt roads and finding some nice parks. We even accidently ended up crashing a Lao new year party full of locals, which finished with us drinking Beerlao and dancing with them....while being soaked by water of course!
We ended up going tubing again, this time managing to get some really nice photos along the way, which you can view via the link on the right hand side of the screen.
Ville and I managed to go without watching American TV re-runs every day we were in Vang Vieng except one, where we spent about 3 hours watching Family Guy one night when it spontaneously bucketed down with rain. The restaurants with the TVs are the only restaurants with cover so we didn't have much choice...honestly!
All up, we spent 5 days in Vang Vieng, which was probably about 2 and a half days to long, as there really isn't anything to do there aside from drinking, tubing and watching TV. However, we did have a blast there all the same.
Me and Ville then went our seperate ways for a couple of days, as I headed to Phonsavan, and Ville headed direct to Luang Prabang.
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