Posted by: Jenn
To say the least, I'm not sure we had mentally or physically prepared ourselves for the activities that took place in Vang Vieng. We ended up getting a room the first night with two Dutch girls that we had met on the slow boat. After we settled in, we met up with another Canadian/American couple from the slow boat and we went out for dinner and drinks.
To say the least, I'm not sure we had mentally or physically prepared ourselves for the activities that took place in Vang Vieng. We ended up getting a room the first night with two Dutch girls that we had met on the slow boat. After we settled in, we met up with another Canadian/American couple from the slow boat and we went out for dinner and drinks.
After about five minutes of walking down the street we felt like we had stepped back in time a few years to the early college days of "I'm away from my parents finally, I can do whatever the heck I want." The streets were filled with tourists in swimsuits just getting back from the river stumbling over each other in desperate search of drunk food. The amount of tourists in this town, and the amount of partying occurring made me feel like I was not in Asia but on Spring Break in Cancun. People watching was the highlight of the night - everywhere you looked someone was falling over and being hoisted up by three inebriated friends or someone else has decided the sidewalk is as good a place as any to fall asleep for the night. It was quite the scene. I wonder what the locals think about all these white people overrunning their town, wearing nothing but bikinis and board shorts (which is very disrespectful to their culture), and stumbling about whooping and hollering.
The next morning we, the two dutch girls, and the Canadian/American couple met up to rent tubes to go float down the river, which is the main attraction in this town. In Texas near where I grew up there are several rivers where you can rent tubes and float down them. Our family would go every summer for a few days and float down the Guadalupe River in New Braunfels. For anyone not familiar with this, you rent a tube and are driven to a certain point upstream of the tube rental shop and you float down river for a few hours. Almost everyone buys at least one extra tube per group to put an ice chest in that you can fill with drinks and snacks to last you the float as there is no where to stop along the way to get food and drinks. This is the image I had in mind.
Our tuk tuk driver dropped us off and as soon as the river came into view, my nostalgic image of our family vacation was immediately shot. Music was blaring from the bars that lined both sides of the river, rope swings and slides jutted out from each bar and there was no one actually floating the river - they were packed in on the decks of each bar drinking and dancing. The idea being that you float up to a bar and get out, you get a drink, do the rope swing or slide, then get back in the river and float the 10-feet to the next bar. No wonder this place has a reputation for so many people getting injured - drinking and doing rope swings over areas where if you let go at the wrong time you will probably hit a rock.
The next morning we, the two dutch girls, and the Canadian/American couple met up to rent tubes to go float down the river, which is the main attraction in this town. In Texas near where I grew up there are several rivers where you can rent tubes and float down them. Our family would go every summer for a few days and float down the Guadalupe River in New Braunfels. For anyone not familiar with this, you rent a tube and are driven to a certain point upstream of the tube rental shop and you float down river for a few hours. Almost everyone buys at least one extra tube per group to put an ice chest in that you can fill with drinks and snacks to last you the float as there is no where to stop along the way to get food and drinks. This is the image I had in mind.
Our tuk tuk driver dropped us off and as soon as the river came into view, my nostalgic image of our family vacation was immediately shot. Music was blaring from the bars that lined both sides of the river, rope swings and slides jutted out from each bar and there was no one actually floating the river - they were packed in on the decks of each bar drinking and dancing. The idea being that you float up to a bar and get out, you get a drink, do the rope swing or slide, then get back in the river and float the 10-feet to the next bar. No wonder this place has a reputation for so many people getting injured - drinking and doing rope swings over areas where if you let go at the wrong time you will probably hit a rock.
Obviously we weren't trying to get sloshed; we just wanted to swing, slide, float and come out alive. Before we hopped in the river we hung out at the first bar for a while and enjoyed the rope swing they had.
We floated from bar to bar to hit up their swings, each one a different height and length.
The last bar we had time for before needing to return the tubes was my favorite because of the huge slide.
Although not like the family vacation river at home, it was a great time and an experience like none I have ever had. If you ever plan on going to Vang Vieng PLEASE don't drink and float!
The next day we slept in and then decided to do some exploring of the surrounding area on foot. The karst landscape that surrounds Vang Vieng was so beautiful. I still can't get over how cool this type of landscape is, I guess because it is so different than anything at home.
The next day we slept in and then decided to do some exploring of the surrounding area on foot. The karst landscape that surrounds Vang Vieng was so beautiful. I still can't get over how cool this type of landscape is, I guess because it is so different than anything at home.
We got back just in time to catch the sunset over the river from the balcony of a restaurant while enjoying two delicious fruit shakes. We have been drinking so many fruit shakes because they are so good and they are healthy because it's fruit...or so we thought. We finally watched the process of making one and to our great disappointment we realized that we were wrong about the healthy factor. Jonathan ordered a strawberry shake and this is how it went.
- 1 TBSP of Strawberry jam
- 2 cups of ice
- 1 TBSP of sweetened condensed mike
- 1.5 cups of sugar water
- 1 tsp of sugar
Healthy...I think not...
- 1 TBSP of Strawberry jam
- 2 cups of ice
- 1 TBSP of sweetened condensed mike
- 1.5 cups of sugar water
- 1 tsp of sugar
Healthy...I think not...
The following morning we woke up early to meet our rock climbing guide at his shop for the day of climbing that we had booked the day before. Vang Vieng also has some spectacular climbing and we couldn't pass it up. Our guide, Lee, was a 27 year old local who was super chill and made our climbing experience a lot of fun.
He took us to a beautiful spot along the river that had several different routes varying in difficulty.
For lunch Lee made us kebabs with chicken, pineapple, green peppers, onions and tomatoes. They were so good, especially after working up quite an appetite.
We climbed a few more routes until our hands just couldn't take anymore. It was so good to get to climb again; we haven't climbed in a while and being out on the rock was a soothing escape from the hectic, over tourist-ed river city. While we were climbing we had a chance to get to know Lee a little and we wanted his opinion on the way his city has changed from tourism and overall whether it has been a positive or negative thing. His answer was interesting. He said that overall the tourism is good because it brings in money and gives the locals business and provides job opportunities, like being a rock climbing instructor. He continued to say that tourism was negative because the tourists don't respect the local culture by walking around in nearly nothing. He said that even when the locals go swimming they wear pants and shirts, not swim suits, and that they understand that tourists wear swimsuits in water, but they don't understand why tourists wear swimsuits in restaurants and around the city. He asked us if it was normal in our country to wear a bathing suit into a shop or restaurant and we told him no. We told him there were only a few places you could get away with it in some beach towns but only in a few restaurants. And he said "Hm, they why do people think it is ok in our country?". We couldn't really answer that, but the conversation was good and it was interesting to hear what he had to say.
That night for dinner Jonathan wanted to explore some of the local Lao food (I didn't think this was smart seeing as he just got over this stomach bug thing that he has had for about two weeks). He ordered Lap (pronounced Lop, sounds like mop) from a street stall. The food looked like it had been sitting forever and there were flies everywhere but he insisted that he had to try it. I watched as she scooped this shredded beef slop mix into a plastic bag and grabbed a handful of sticky rice (with her bare hand) and put it into another plastic bag.
That night for dinner Jonathan wanted to explore some of the local Lao food (I didn't think this was smart seeing as he just got over this stomach bug thing that he has had for about two weeks). He ordered Lap (pronounced Lop, sounds like mop) from a street stall. The food looked like it had been sitting forever and there were flies everywhere but he insisted that he had to try it. I watched as she scooped this shredded beef slop mix into a plastic bag and grabbed a handful of sticky rice (with her bare hand) and put it into another plastic bag.
He liked it though and was happy that he found a local joint and was able to get some local grub from a place that didn't have a menu and didn't speak a word of English. Afterwards, we went to restaurant that had a menu, in English, and I ordered a bowl of noodle soup. We watched a few episodes of Friends while I chowed down. Each one of the restaurants in this town would play a different TV series in English and you could pick where you wanted to eat based on what that place was showing. After dinner, of course I needed my sweet fill - a chocolate chip cookie did the job.
The next morning, which was Valentine's day, we boarded a bus to Vientiene, the capitol of Laos. We hope to get a nice hotel room and dinner to celebrate the day of love.