Thursday, August 18, 2005

Vang Vieng - Slacker Heaven

We stayed in Vang Vieng for almost a week and had a great time, although we didn't get a huge amount done. We did manage to do a lot of lying around on huge cushions, drinking beer, eating unhealthy food and watching crappy pirated movies.
We did manage to spend a day kayaking, and it absolutely hammered it down with rain for the entire day. Enormous fun though as the river had flooded its banks in many places from the heavy rains upstream and the current would whip us along at quite a pace. Our guide was adamant that he only took us through grade 1 rapids but reckon they were more like grade 173. Our kayaks were the 2 man inflatable variety. Like trying to steer a whale but much more stable on the white water than the fibreglass and plastic varieties (we saw many of those capsizing over the course of the day). The current was so strong that most of the time all we had to do was steer and the flow of the river kept us going as fast as we needed to go. We took lunch on a raised platform over the river immediately after navigating a particularly nasty bit of turbulance. We all made it through okay but over lunch we could sit and watch all the other groups try to get through in their little plastic kayaks and almost to a man, they turned them over in the fast water and spent the next 200 yards getting swept along by the current and trying to catch up with their boats. Not too comfortable for them but very amusing for us. Schadenfreude I believe the Germans call it.

Another afternoon was spent 'Tubing', which involved climbing onto a tractor innertube and floating down the river back towards the town. Not as dull as it sounds. The scenery along that part of the river is breathtaking and every 200 yards or so along the river are little 'bars' to stop and take refreshment. By bars I mean a couple of local lads with a few crates of cold Beer Lao and a rope swing set up over the river for us to play on. You float down the river for a bit, stop at a bar, have a beer, have a few swings out over the river and plop in, swim back, drink more beer and then climb back into your innertube to move on to the next one. A few of the bars have rope slides stretched across the river and every now and then you can zoom across the river on your slide and try to take out a few Tubers floating down from a rival bar. This bit was fun but you soon tired of it as trying to swim back to the bar in the strong current soon takes it out of you, especially after a few cold ones. Unfortunately, we were enjoying ourselves too much and floated way past the point where we were supposed to get out of the water. The end result being we had to walk back to town dripping wet and carrying a couple of rather cumbersome tractor innertubes. Oh well, down to the riverside bars for a couple of happy milkshakes and a bite to eat. Hard life.

We were in Vang Vieng for a week. We did nothing. We spent a grand total of 47 pence including meals and acommodation. We left. The bus trip to Vientienne was neither as beautiful nor as interesting than the previous one.

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