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Foreigners gone wild in Vang Vieng, Laos

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

According to the Lonely Planet, if you have a problem with reruns of “Friends” being shown daily throughout town, Vang Vieng may not be for you. So I have no problem with “Friends” but also did not take the authors statement literally and assumed there would be a lot of pop US shows on. This is not the case, from guest house to guest house, the show “Friends” is being played on repeat. You walk through town, and hear about Monica and Chandler’s first kiss over their roaring speakers. It is very odd, but quite funny.

Vang Vieng is more than just Friends, however, it is a big place for tubing and outdoor activities. Tubing in Vang Vieng is not of the same relaxing variety that I have done in the US. We entered the river on our tubes in the late afternoon and a few minutes later floated to the first bar. The bartender handed us the end of a bamboo pole and pull us towards his bar. Up above, a guy went swinging by on a zip line that sends him into the water. That’s when I thought, this is going to be a blast. A few zipline swings and drinks later we are off on the river again. The second bar we reach is packed with young people. That along with the 100 plus tubes parked on the side of the river, let us know that this is the place to be. Above we see a trapeze swing that sends people flying into the river. Bob Marley hits blast from the loud speakers and people drink, play volleyball, punch a punching bag (an interesting addition) and hang out by the bon fire. This could be the set of MTV’s Spring Break 2008! We had to tear ourselves away from this bar to ensure that we make it back to town before the sun goes down.

The second half of tubing, not as much fun, as the sun is setting, I am shivering but refusing to get out of the river to take a tuk tuk to town, more on principal than anything. We had it better than most, perhaps because we were not completely pissed, to incorporate an Aussie term, we had the sense to leave the bar and continue on our way before it was dark. A lot of the drunker tubers tubed back to town in pitch dark.

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Catching our breath in Luang Prabang, Laos

Thursday, February 7th, 2008

Despite our hectic arrival to Luang Prabang, it was impossible to stress out for too long. Luang Prabang the type of town that must make the cover of “Traveler’s Magazine” time and time again. The buildings are of French architecture and there is beautiful soft lighting in the evening which make for a very romantic ambiance. Plus on top of that, there is hardly any traffic or loud noise. The aggressive street touts common in Vietnam seem nonexistent here. Another thing that we were delighted to find was pastries of all varieties (chocolate cake, brownies, banana bread, chocolate croissants). If you know Dan and I, this made it into a little piece of heaven for us.

For dinner we decided to head to a restaurant that was highly recommended in our guide book. As we started walking we stopped to see a beautiful night market which sold handicrafts, jewelry, purses, souvenirs and clothing. We saw a stand where fried noodles and fried rice were selling for only 30 cents a plate and decided to partake. They were quite delicious and filling. We then moved on only to find another market that sold only food. There were vegetarian buffets,fish and meats cooking on the grill, and other delicacies for sale, such as grilled pig heads. They had long picnic tables set up which were completely full with people dining on this delicious food. We grabbed a bit more food and realized that the way to dine well in Luang Prabang is not inside at a restaurant but on the street at these delicious food stalls.

According to our guidebook, Luang Prabang is the perfect city for sightseeing by bicycle. We decided that we would spend our second day in Luang Prabang doing just that. We spent the morning looking for bicycles to rent…the dialogue went something like this:

us: Do you have bicycles for rent?
them: no
us: Do you know where we can rent a bicycle?
them: no

So, after talking to about ten people, finally, one kind Laotian guest-house clerk decides to say a little more and explains that it is against the law to rent bicycles to foreigners in Luang Prabang. Forgetting that you are not supposed to criticize the Laos government, I express my disbelief and then share my thoughts on the gross stupidity of that law. Later, while walking around we run into two other groups of foreigners who are on the wild goose chase of finding a bicycle to rent in Luang Prabang.

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Making a run for the border…

Tuesday, February 5th, 2008
We left Hanoi on an early flight to Luang Prabang, Laos. We had our passport photos ready to give for the visa and thought we were ready to go. Oops. Here's a lesson in having the right amount of travel ... [Continue reading this entry]

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