Vang Vien
Laos is great.
I just spent 3 days in this small town called Vang Vien about halfway between Luang Prabang and the capital, Vientiane. Vang Vien itself has little to offer; the main drag is made up of pizza joints and Indian restaurants that show movies and Friends episodes all day at obscenely high volume levels. At night there is a bar/pool joint that gets fairly lively.
The main attraction in Vang Vien is renting an inner tube from a shop and then floating down the Nam Song River. Every 100 meters or so, an enterprising Lao has staked out a patch of riverbank where he or she waits with a bamboo pole and pulls in passing floaters to serve nice cold Beer Lao. For those of you in the Midwest, it is a lot like floating down the Apple River in Wisconsin, except the scenery is amazing and the beer is cheap. About halfway down the river, we pulled into a bar that was rocking some Lao techno but offered the opportunity to explore a cave. After downing a few beers, we walked to the cave that was just up in the jungle. Exploring the cave required swimming up the river that emerged from the cave. The experience was quite exciting to say the least.
Farther downstream was another stop where if you bought a beer for $1, you could jump off a 10-meter ledge into the river. An Irish guy who joined our flotilla about halfway down the river tried to make the jump, but hesitated at the edge, fell off and nearly hit the riverbank on the way down. Our crew was feeling pretty good by the end of the journey, so we all had a quick shower and just headed out onto the town.
After a long night, we all met up again at noon the next day to do the same trip. We felt like professionals, procuring a bottle of Lao whiskey for 70 cents and a few bottles of Pepsi for the journey. This time, we explored a different cave at another bar. The proprietor sold us candles and told us it was a quick 10-minute walk up the jungle to the cave. The 30-minute march up the “trail” was over slippery, jagged limestone rock which most of us did in flip-flops. The cave was pretty big; I brought a flashlight but everyone else had candles as we explored. A Scot who was with us was remarking that in Briton, we would all be wearing hiking boots, helmets, and have ropes and flashlights. In Laos, a guy on the side of the river sold you candles and pointed towards the trail, and didn’t seem to mind that you had no shirt and were wearing sandals.
The next day, I took off with a few English guys to Vientiane. I will be here waiting for my visa for Vietnam until Wednesday, then it’s an overnight bus to Hue.
I don’t have any pictures from Vang Vien because I spent all day tubing and all night partying, but one of the guys on our float the first day brought his camera, so once his sends his pics to me, I can put a few up. Incidentally, he was on Koh Tao the same time I was. I didn’t mention this in my entries from Koh Tao, but one of the first nights I was there, I went down to the Maya Bar, where the party was happening. When I got there, the entire place was in flames, with people using anything they could to try and stop the inferno. Seeing that it was a lost cause, I retired to my bed. Jordan (the guy who was down on Koh Tao) witnessed the fire as well and snapped a photo.
I have also added photos to the past few entries: “Pai in the Sky” and “Mekong Blues.”
Enjoy,
Neil
Tags: Laos
Neil