89: Vang Vieng Hell
In my book Vang Vieng is Hell!
It must be the worst place to go to in the entire country if no SE Asia 😉
I could not bare staying here more than one night (and that was a pain) but I did meet a local teacher who invited me to the local grammar school to talk to the kids..
First of all the entire city is a building site. ALL the roads in the town are being dug up on both sides for adding waste drainage I presume plus about half the houses are being demolished, rebuilt or repaired… Vang Vieng is rather small and I can see how it could once habve been a nice place next to a river and surrounded my magic scenery but this place has nothing left of iots former charm, absolutely not.
Moreover it will never recover either even once te building work is complete because it nothing more than a horrid tourist/backpacker hole with bars/restaurants lining up along the main road serving western food. Each place has at least one but mostly 2 or 3 TVs switched on with some american sitcom or some movies playing.. remember those places are “open-air” so you really cant escape the TV programs even if it’s the place next door that has the TV switched on cos you do hear it even if you cant see it;-)
Actually I knew about this and it didnt bother me since I was planning to go for a 3 day hiking trip in the mountains the next day. But I was out of luck…. There are NO hiking/trekking tours in Vang Vieng! The guys who told me that they had a fab time hiking in Vang Vieng must have picked a special tour or something but after walking around the entire town and talknig to pretty much all tour operators one thing was clear… no hiking!
There is climbing and kayaking and tubing but no hiking.
This is a real shame because this area around Vang Vieng is te mosty stunning landscape I have seen sofar. I was really annoyed when it became clear that I cold no venture out and walk around the area.
I thought about getting a private guide but the othere thing I struggled with in the town was the locals. I am not kidding but these people are the unfriendliest people EVER. It really took me by surprise because sofar Laos people are really nice, friendly (even more so than Thais) and it just didn’t make sense to come across those ignorant, impolite and lazy locals..
Pretty much every “tour operator” I spoke to couldn’t even be bothered talking to me. Some just nodded their head. The biggest one Green Discovery I think gave me the folder with the things they had on offer and walked away.. He hardly said a word (though I knew he spoke english ok)…
Anyway after just a few hours in Vang Vieng I knew exactly what I was going to do next: Leave asap which meant the next morning!
I walked around the town about twice that afternoon, tried the internet cafes briefly (taught a few kids some englsh, see below) and had dinner at one of the restaurants with those annoying TVs (I had no choice), then headed back to my guesthouse.
IMHO anyone who enjoys staying in this place must be completely brain dead or on drugs! (Which is one of the reasons why people come here I guess;-)
In Summary: Vang Vieng is Hell!
English Class at Local School
I actually had a nice encounter with a local teacher/school before i had dinner.
I was visiting one of the Wats in Vang Vieng and he was sitting in the grounds preparing his evening class. We started talking and he said he was teaching englisch in a nearby school. I noticed his course work and he asked if I could correct some of his englisch sentences. I pointed out that I was not native english but he was keen so I gave him a few tips.. He asked me if I could come to the school with him and talk to the kids in english. He had two classes that evening, one for young kids who just started to learn englisch and another one for teens. For lack of other plans I agreed to come along and join the classes..
During the first class he taught kids of around 10 years the english words of the upper human body and I was asked to pronounce the words for them after which they would repeat..
The second class had kids from two other schools and also some novice monks. The teacher decided to do dictation. It was a short abstract of no more than 3 sentences which I was asked to read out slowly (VERY SLOWLY) and it took 30 mins to repeat over and over again until everybody managed to write everything down 🙂
It was quite good fun doing this, lets just hope they don’t start sounding like german-scottish people now 😉
Afterwards I had a drink with the teacher and a little chat. Eventually it turned into a “I earn little money and need x dollars a month for rent.. can you help me” type conversation (though a bit more subtle) which made me feel a bit uncomfortable not knowing how to respond. I guess he had to give it a shot talking to a rich westerner..
Tags: Laos, RTW 2005/2006, Vang Vieng
saschas
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