Vang Viene

December 2nd:

Well what they say about Vang Viene is all true: its touristy, its beautiful, its a shitshow but it is also what you make it. I came to this place with much hesitation but will be leaving with a new admiration for the place. I will be okay if I never make it back here again, but I'm glad to have seen what Vang Viene is all about.

After two nights back in Luang Prabang (Great to go back to a place you know so you can turn off your brain for a bit), I caught the early morning bus to Vang Viene. The drive takes four hours but is absolutely breathtaking. Fortunately, I ran into my three Dutch friends in LP and they were in the same minivan as me. Unfortunately, they had all gone out drinking the night before and one of the girls spent the entire drive with her head out the window- retching from a carsick/hungover stomach combo. We arrived in good time though and all settled into the SpicyLaos in Vang Viene- a cheap backpackers that looks like a bamboo treehouse/dollhouse, has an amazing comunal area, hot showers, and has free breakfast, coffee, and wifi.

The Dutch kids and I head into town to get some lunch and end up in a little bungalow down by the river. Order our food, start talking to our Isreali neighbor, Eran, who ends up joining us, and take in the view. And it is really beautiful...you can't deny that.

We were all a bit hesitant to come here as stories about this place usually consisted of the words/phrases: 'wasted', 'tubing from bar to bar', 'Friends, Family Guy and Simpsons', 'so blacked out', 'lost everything', 'bad decision', 'buckets', '...and that's how I got that scar', etc etc. For those of you unfamiliar with the reputation of this place, that pretty much sums it up- this small town lies on a river that has been taken over by westerners who tube the river (though a tube is uneccessary), get heavily intoxicated (from the bars set up along the river that serve free shots and buckets of drinks), usually hurt themselves in some way or another (usually on the massive rope swings and zip lines or by just being really blitzed), and then go pass out in restaraunts that consistantly show Friends, Family Guy and the Simpsons (and serve 'happy pizza' and sometimes just straight up opium on their menus). It's like the backpackers cancun; a frat party on the Mekong; tubing the truckee on crack times eighteenhundred. I debated whether to come at all since this whole trip has been much more about soul searching than partying, but I still had a few days till my Vietnam visa started and always came to the conclusion 'when in rome'. Well, here is Rome and here we are: the skeptics sitting on the beautiful banks of the Mekong admiring the beauty and already drinking a beer only a half hour after we have gotten into town.

Clean up quickly and then meet back up at a Family Guy restaraunt with Eran. Grab a beer where our hostel crew is far more drunk than us and are raging in fisherman pants and painted faces. Excuse ourselves from their celebration after a bit and head to the bars down by the river. A few buckets later, we call it a night as the bars shut off their music at the early hour of 11pm. Head to bed after a quick chill sesh with the crew back at the backpackers and after severely insulting my Irish dormmate when I asked her to please not puke on me as she was carried to her bed that was 6 inches away from me.

Woke up puke-free and feeling only slightly dulled by last nights buckets- spent the morning sipping my complimentary coffee and eating a toasted baquette with jam and banana (my standard Lao breakfast) and chill out in our little family area at the hostel as others peel themselves out of bed with face paint and spray paint still covering their skin. Get our crew together of the three Dutch, the tubing-veteren Eran and me. Lunch and then tuk-tuk up the river. Everyone has their opinion on whether to bring a tube or not, but the majority of our friends have assured us that a tube is completely unnecessary. Get dropped off between bar one and bar two tubeless and greeted by a heavily intoxicated fellow who was designated 'tour guide of the day'. He showed us a map of the bars (pretty easy to grasp the idea when the bars are named 1,2,3,4 and so on as you float down river), gives us our first 'tubing bracelletes' and tell us that the goal is 'to get as wasted as humanly possible'. Thanks drunk dude with girl shorts on and a huge bandage on your leg... I will be sure to heed your advice. Bar one is a simple bungalow-style open bar with a big deck over the river and a huge rope swing. We take our complimentary Tiger shot when we walk in and take a seat where we have a perfect view of the designated landing area for the rope swing (which is really pretty monsterous and potentially dangerous if you let go too soon). We watch some backflips get landed and some good flops smack the water for a bit before we decide to walk to bar 2... Or maybe it was bar 3 as a few of them all seemed to share decks. Buckets here were cheaper here and, instead of a rope slide, this bar had a zip line into the water. Though not as high, the zipline was equally entertaining to watch as there was a spring at the end of it- if you didn't let go before the spring, your body was flung in the most awkward position and twisted just enough to land in the water at an uncomfortable angle. More free shots, free bananas, finished our cheap buckets and then swam to the next bar on the other side of the river. This one also has a swing, a mud pit and free sweet potatoes with your free shots of Tiger. After a beer here, we head for the last bar or 'slide bar' as it has a ginormous slide that also throws your body off in awkward positions from silly heights. No drinks for me here and I end up walking instead of swimming as the sun has gone down and it is pretty chilly in just the swimsuit and onesie tank I have on. Sit and marvel at the drunkeness that are some people and decide to call it as the bonfire dies down.

I have to say that I think I have become too old for this sort of shinanigans. When handed free shots by bartenders, my first thought was: 'I wonder how many people have taken a shot out of this since it was last washed' instead of 'free liqour!!!!'. I sat on the ground as the tables all had wastey-faced people dancing on them and was able to sit there and look from one person to the next and just say to myself 'I do not envy you drunk girl with your boob hanging out', 'I do not envy you dude with a spraypainted penis on your back', 'I do not envy you drunk girl being carried off by three dudes at 2pm'. You see, I do not judge these people... I'm just over it. After four years of uni and a solid year in a ski town, I have done my fair share of drinking and partying and waking up with hangovers and drunk injuries... It is just not what interests me at the moment. I worked my butt off for the money to come over here and be where I am; I know I have to come back with some of it too as I make the move to Seattle with no job lined up; I know a medical bill or an injury could potentially cut my trip short and a drunken tube sesh on the river is just not worth it to me... Though I do have to admit that if I had been in Vang Viene when I was 19, I would have eaten up everybit of the party culture that it is.

Despite my efforts to go out for more beers after dinner, I give up pretty fast and head to bed to sleep. Next day, the Dutch leave and I hear from Saha who wants me to wait till the fourth so we can head off to Vietnam together. I agree after some deliberation and decide how to spend two additional days here NOT drinking. Hooked up with a group from spicylaos and we caught a tuk tuk to the blue lagoon and cave that's a short half hour drive down a very mangled dirt road. The blue lagoon is smaller than we imagined but lives up to it's name with it's tourqouise blue color. Hike up to the cave first and pop around there for a bit. I feel like I have been in quite a few caves over the past 7 weeks, but this one probably takes the cake as one of the best I have seen here in Asia. The sheer size of this thing was mind blowing and it went on forever... We didn't get too deep in before turning back though as I was the only one with a head lamp and was attempting to light the way for 6 of us- which got more sketchy as the footing was starting to become more complex the further we descended in. By the time we got out of there though, we were beyond ready for a swim in the lagoon.

There is a nice, big tree convienientely located on the bank of water with a few levels of jumps and another rope swing off it's branches. We all took our turns jumping in from various spots and then dried off before finding our tuk tuk driver to take us back.

Shower and downtime before dinner at the backpackers with the whole family there. Man this was a feast that Pong had put on for us: grilled fish, buffalo stew, cabbage nasi goreing, sticky rice and a sweet pumpkin/cocunut milk dessert. We had so many leftovers and the full group of 20+ were stuffed passed the point of comfort.

The next day was even more chill and consisted of breakfast and goodbyes with a group from spicylaos, lunch with friends, hammock swinging/reading/writing on the quiet part of the river over a fruit shake, dinner with Saha and about five episodes of Friends, back to spicylaos for introductions to the newcomers, and out for a beer with the Irish girls and Nathan and some other kids we've met along the way.

Tomorrow starts Saha and i's big journey to Vietnam. 4 hours bus ride to Vietnam, three hour layover and then 24 hours by bus to Hanoi. Not psyched about it but it will be good to have a travel buddy and a change of scenery.