Arrived in the afternoon and more or less crashed after the evil bus journey. We hadn't been there very long when we started chatting to a few of the REALLY hungover people scattered around the common area, at least one of whom should probably have been in intensive care in the hospital . . . but since there is no local hospital really, he just had to ride it out. I'll get to the "sickness" later, since it's something quite common after a day or two tubing.
One of the things that came up was my Irishness, and the other Irish guy hanging around. It took about 4 seconds for us to realise that this was not just any other drunken Irishman, but rather our old friend Larros from Luang Prabang, raising serious hell on the tubing river of Vang Vienn - oh joy . . .
Less than an hour in, Larros was carried into the hostel by one of the bar workers, so pissed he couldn't remember his name or where his bed was supposed to be, so he was put to sleep in the TV room. This guy could be a poster-boy for what not to do in Vang Vienn. He was cut up, bruised, pissed, nearly drowned and patches of skin were going a weird colour (and not from the body paint, which I'll get to later). (And believe it or not, this is not the last I'll hear of Larros of Laos). This is a guy who is lucky enough not to be a statistic, despite trying really fucking hard to become one. At least one person a year dies in Vang Vienn thanks to the rough cocktail of alcohol, water and stupidity. Officially. Probably, the number is higher than that. And if it isn't, it's down to other tubers looking out for each other.
That said, tubing is also awesome if you aren't a fucking retard.
So, me, Chris and Matt had a quiet night that night. Had food and one drink in bucket bar, after which we headed back to the hostel and went to bed so we were fresh for our first day of tubing.
Before we get to that, I have to say a few things about the oddness of Vang Vienn. It's a town that appears to thrive entirely on the backbone of tourism, and seems to cater exclusively for us. There are a few touristy, sightseeing things to do, but by and large it consists of alcohol-related activities and things to do while recovering from alcohol-related activities. A huge precentage of the bars/restaurants show endless reruns of Friends, Family Guy and one place shows the Simpsons. Each one of these places shows the same show and some of them are even named after the show they feature - as in the Friends bar or the Family Guy bar.
The food is also extremely westernised, with most places serving pizza and burgers along with a very limited Laos menu. It's odd, but I suppose it works for them.
Not much else to say about our first night, although maybe Bucket Bar deserves a mention. This is the place where all the tubers still standing go. So if you've been tubing, you will know literally everyone in this bar. You will dance and you will drink and you will love it. If you only just arrived, you'll feel like you gate-crashed a private party. It's a strange place.
Also, I'm pretty sure that Vang Vienn has just discovered rope light, because nearly every sign is made out of it! It looks like Christmas on acid late at night!
So we had a drink, met one or two people from along the road or from the slow boat and then headed off to bed because there really wasn't f-all else to do.
Tubing - Day One - 29th October
Around breakfast in Spicy we got talking to a lot of other people, most of whom were going tubing aswell, so group slowly started to form out of a ragtag collection of different people. Some had been before and quickly became appointed our leaders. I really can't remember everyone, try as I might, but that's okay.
If you have no idea what tubing is, I'll give you a brief summary. You sit in a fully inflated tractor tire and float down a river. Tubing Vang Vienn style is a little different however. Here, you float a very short distance from one bar to another, drinking copious amounts of alcohol and jumping off high platforms into the water, swinging into it, or using (sometimes homemade) waterslides. It's as stupid and dangerous and awesome as it sounds.
The advice given to me, which I will pass on to you, is "Bring nothing." Seriously, bring nothing. I wore my swimming shorts and a waterproof pouch with my money. And nothing else. No shoes, no jewelry, nothing important. Chris brought his waterproof camera and still nearly lost it at least once. But thankfully he did because otherwise we'd have no pictures or videos.
When we were all ready, a good dozen of us, we started the short walk in our bare feet to the tubing place, led by our Danish guides, Elizabeth and Kristina (who probably don't spell their names like that). Interestingly, the tubing place had moved and they walked us right past it - great start girls, seriously, filled with confidence at this point.
It costs 55,000 kip to rent a tube, and a deposit of 60, which you get back if you are back before 6. After 6 you get 40 and after 7 you get 20. I only ever got the 40 back.
Basically works out at about €7 for the day when you get back the deposit.
Bar one is basically a warm up. You have a bucket, get chatting, find out if you're with complete lunatics or not (I'm gonna go with our group was about 50/50) and then after around an hour, you grab your tube for the first time and hit the water.
And then about 30 seconds later there are some local guys throwing you ropes with bottles at the end to pull you in to bar number two, where there is more drink, more spray paint and a bunch of guys and girls (westerners) hired by Bucket Bar to give you a little wristband that entitles you to a free bucket later that night in . . . wait for it . . . Bucket Bar!
They also provide some interesting head/arm bands with slogans written on them. Some of my favourites are, "I didn't lose my virginity, I left it at bucket bar!", Chris's immortal, "Potential Rapist" and my very own, "I'm a necro, how well do you play dead!"
This bar also has the world's worst fucking slide. See video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAo0ltAjSXQ
What you can't see here is that at the last corner you smack into the side, then bang your head before getting tossed out, dazed, into the water, and a fairly strong current. Piece of advice? Stay away from the blue slide!
Then we hit bar three, which was okay and finally arrived in my person favourite, bar 4. The music was awesome and although every bar plays the same shit every day, who cares. Plus, this happened . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib8WpViDNM8
FUCK YOU I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TOLD ME!!!
Yes, well, very . . . sorry, forgot where I was for a second there.
While I'm distracted, I'll try an introduce the main core of our group. See picture -
Left to right, there's me, English girl, Other Chris, Random Guy, Mexican guy, Savannah, Matt, Barbara, Chris, Random Guy2, and English girl2. Not pictured are Kristina and Elizabeth. Kristina is below but we don't seem to have any pictures of Elizabeth - sorry!
And yes, that is a tie spray painted on my chest. I'm a professional, remember.
After another bucket and much rocking to Nirvana and Greenday we headed off to Mudbar, famed for having a mudfighting pit, a shit slide and being the main source of pink eye in Vang Vienn. While here I was chatting to Ivo, a Dutch guy, who was getting an appology for WWII from some drunk German guy, so I asked him, "Did he get his bicycle back yet?" which caused Ivo to almost die of shock.
I always thought everyone knew about this, but apparently not. He's never met anyone who knew about the bicycle thing. During the Nazi occupation of Holland, the German's stole a significant amount of bicycles, presumably to melt down for the metal. After WWII the Dutch recieved an appology, but never got their bikes back, so at international sports fixtures between the two countries, the Dutch often chant, "Give us back our bicycles" (in Dutch). Dunno where I picked this little factoid up, but there you go! Five days later and Ivo still thinks it's hilarous that I know it.
We didn't stay that long before we headed off to our last bar of the day. I think it had a name. God only knows what it was though. I had my third bucket here, having just finished a beer as well.
It did have a very awesome waterslide though. Check out Chris giving it a go below!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSzvFckipO0
This was our last bar, after which we got in the water and floated for home.
Once we got out of the Tuk Tuk we grabbed our money and me and Chris dived straight for the nearest street food stall and wolved down a burger each. We were hungry, and very very drunk.
After that we all went back to the hostel and raced for the showers on a first come first serve basis. I think I got fifth. And the showers were WARM!!! OMG, like I've never been so happy!
The next hour is a little fuzzy but eventually me, Matt and Chris and possibly Other Chris went for food. Yeah, I'm fairly sure other Chris was there.
While we were eating, Duncan, Swedish Chris and the Aussie girls Bekaa and Cork showed up. It's not a big place, so they were more or less guaranteed to walk past us at some point. The next 15mins or so involved them laughing at us for being pissed, and me reminding Bekaa that she owed me one carrying-home later! We said we'd meet them in Bucket Bar later.
Which we did. I got a free whiskey and coke bucket, and managed to get everyone moshing again when they played Rage (again) but by about 12 I was more or less burnt the fuck out and went home to bed. Chris kept going, but we'll get to that later!
Sleep, shockingly, came quite easily that night - despite the fact that my bed appeared to be made of a block of cement. Although, I woke up about 5 freezing cold for the first time in about 2 months. It was amazing! Stuck on my Metallica hoodie (at once the only warm thing I own, and also the only thing I brought that I actually didn't buy just for this trip) and went straight back to sleep.
Tubing - Day 2 - 30th October
I woke up slightly hungover, and hungry - and also broke, so headed out fairly early to grab a sandwich and some money. Ran into a few people as I was moseying along and was faced with the question, "Are you going tubing?" over and over again. At first, I had decided, nah, give it a miss. But each and every time, my resolve crumbled that little bit more . . .
By the time Duncan, Swedish Chris and the girls showed up, it took only the thiniest shove and I was back in my swimming shorts, shoving money in my pouch. Ah well . . . here we go again.
Funny thing is, while yesterday I was a clueless n00b, today I was leading the way . . . Don't do this, do do that . . . all that. It was a quieter day in general, but still awesome. The pattern more or less held from the day before. Bucket in the first bar, nothing in the second, beer in the third, bucket in the fourth.
Today I tried a zip line, which I hadn't done the day before. No video unfortunately. Now see, I just did what everyone did, which is hang on til the zip hits a stud about mid way and sends you flipping into the water - which hurt quite a lot. But apparently, you're supposed to let go BEFORE you hit the stud. Thanks for telling me, Lao-guy in charge. You're considerably awesome.
While we were here, all my ice and Bekaa's had melted, so I went and got some more for us. (And later, she got a second top up - this may be very relevant and you should probably not do this when you get to Vang Vienn)
We "lost" Bekaa at bar 4, in that she stayed behind with some other people, while we went on ahead, skipping mud bar and hitting up the one with the big slide, where there was more alcohol and more sliding and more other messing in general. And then we went to Slingshot, where we were offered joints, magic mushrooms and, as an afterthought, alcohol.
Other Chris managed to step on a nail on his way to the bathroom and was given a free can of coke, a spliff and two mushrooms by way of compensation. Yes, you did read that right. Clearly we are in the land of safety and responsiblity.
Then it was back on the river, and at this stage I was way drunker than yesterday and totally on my last legs. And hour floating on the river probably did me a world of good, even if Cork didn't take it so well. She'd barely had anything to drink, so I really can't blame that, but she still managed to get sick off the side of her tube. Motion sickness probably. Actually, it was either the precursor to the Sickness, or the reason why she didn't have such a bad dose of it. But we'll get to that.
We floated all the way back to Bucket Bar and then made our way back to the tube place to get our 40,000 back. It was, again, after dark. When we got there, we found Bekaa minding a very drunk girl who had lost her boyfriend - paying it forward was our Bekaa, at least temporarily. The Sickness is coming, remember?
Ran into Curry on my way there. "I thought you weren't going tubing today?" he says to me.
"So did I!" I say back, soaking wet with a tube slung round me like a bandolier!
I left Cork, Duncan and Swedish Chris at their hostel and me and Other Chris went back to ours, to find a very, very hungover Chris (confused by all the Chrisii? Believe me, we're aware - can't count the number of conversations I've had this week that went, "Wait, which Chris?") chilling in the common area. He'd been sick for most of the day and was only starting to come good now. Chris had been up all night, but he'd also been drinking buckets and he reckons most of them had Red Bull in them. Now, Red Bull at home is fairly strong, but over here, it has amphetamines in it and is like fucking rocket fuel. And they fling it into buckets like no ones business! I had to keep telling them I didn't want it!
After we showered and stuff, we met up again for some food. Bekaa had decided to go to bed for an hour or so, in order to perk up for bucket bar. About 5 minutes after we left, she was puking up and didn't stop til the wee hours of the morning! Sorry, we didn't now!
We went somwhere with some kind of bakery for dinner, I think, then rocked back to ours for so film watching, only to discover the TV was broken. I reckon, sober Shane could probably have fixed it, but not Day Two of Tubing Shane. He was fucking useless!
So anyway, we chilled, we crashed, we went to bed. And then, back home, Cork was sick too. But then, as I lay in bed, my own stomach began a minor revolt. I spent the next twenty minutes or so, standing in the toilet going, will I throw up, won't I throw up. In the end, I didn't, but I continued to fel like shit well into the next day.
We actually reckon it might have something to do with the ice, or possibly the cheap whiskey, but far far too many of us managed to end up sick for it just to have been the drink. It could have just been the river water, but again, that seems a bit much. Everyone of us had ice, and Bekaa had the most, so really, it seems the most likely option.
Bout three that morning I heard some very drunk Irish accents, at least three girls, two of them trying to put the third to bed. It was actually quite funny.
Sligo girl - "Come on, into bed!"
Donegal - "Where am I?"
Sligo - "Home!"
Donegal - "I don't live here!"
Sligo - "Go to bed!"
Donegal - "Don't leave me here, I don't know where I am!"
Sligo - "Our beds are just over there!"
Donegal - "Don't leave me!"
And so on . . .
Eventually they settled down and I went back to sleep.
I actually met these girls the next day, and they were pretty sound. Funnily enough, one of them ended up in hospital a few days later from some sort of stomach poisoning thing. It really does go around.
Also funnily enough, although we didn't discover it until Facebook intervened, but one of these girls is the older sister of a friend of mine, Laura, from my masters class! Because, why wouldn't she be! I call it the Shamrock effect!
Chris and Matt left that morning, but I have no doubt I'll see them along the road somewhere. Probably at Full Moon, maybe in Australia.
I spent the rest of that day chilling in the hostel with some Maltese lads, or, as we've named them - The Maltese Falcons. Duncan and Swedish Chris came up from their hostel and joined us, while Cork went with Aaron to some caves and stuff early in the morning. We all thought Bekaa was gone too because when we called for her there was no answer. Actually, she was just dying alone in her room. Oops . . .
In a bout of utter laziness, we even rang in for food, which was delivered right to the common area in the hostel, and which was very delicious, and even more so for the intendent indolence that went with it. It was also delivered by the hilarious Mama Lao, who may or may not have been the previous owner of Bucket Bar. She has great English and is a bit of a saviour. She rescued Adrian the Falcon from a lady boy the night before, and helped Neil (the Falcon) get a drunk-off-his-face Ryan (the Falcon also) home without losing his wallet, phone or iPod.
Later that evening, we went out for food, walked around a bit and then knocked back to the hostel for a chat and some hanging around.
The next day was again passed in a similar fashion, although Bekaa did ultimately surface and we stopped making jokes about how Cork had killed her and was just stringing us along.
The Irish girls were leaving that morning, and they'd managed to reset the code on their pad lock so I had to borrow a saw from the reception. I'm actually quite unnerved that it took me all of about 30 seconds to saw through the lock and break into their locker. Imagine if I was dodgy person?
For added laughs, the night before one of them, totally convinced she'd lost her phone while at Bucket Bar's bar, had gone mental at a barman, saying he stole it and all the rest. Guess where the phone was? Yup, in the locker. But of course it was! I'd like to point out this was the same girl who woke up with one of the Falcons in her bed, having been "shifting" (haven't heard that in ages) him in the mud at Mud bar the day before - and having little or no recollection of this. So perhaps it isn't that surprising!
Me and Cork looked into kayaking from Vang Vienn to Vientiane, because it seemed like a more interesting way of travelling, as opposed to sitting on a bus for 6 hours. Unfortunately the weather had been too hot recently and the river was too low. Pity really!
We did however book bus tickets to Vientene, because it's basically a central hub to get anywhere from. For me, it was Cambodia, and for them it was Chiang Mai - my favourite place on this whole entire journey of mine.
By that evening, Bekaa had managed to eat some food and we played some cards, did some shopping and then got to bed early to be up for the bus at ten. I sat down with the Maltese Falcons for a bit before bed and there were a few others around too. Also, Daragh from Limerick was passed out in the corner of the common area. Here's a cautionary tale. Daragh cannot swim. Daragh drank a lot while tubing that day. Daragh decided, without warning, to try a rope swing. Daragh still cannot swim. Luckily, one of his friends saw him climbing up at more or less the last minute and managed to get two guys to swim out into the river and grab him after he landed and started to drown. Daragh is a lucky boy.
Anyway, was in bed pretty early that night and thus ended my days in Vang Vienn! It shall be missed!
Final thoughts? Vang Vienn is awesome, and tubing rocks - just don't drink the ice! It'll kill ya!
Talk soon,
Shane!
Sooo Jealous.... Tubing sounds so good!! :))
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