The Tubing in Vang Vieng
12 September – 14 September
In Siem Reap we came across a couple of girls who we’d met a week or so earlier in Phnom Penh. As is usually the case, the conversation moved on to travel plans and when we said we were going to Laos one said. “Don’t go to Vang Vieng.” Her justification for this is that it’s a dirty place filled with, in her words, “Classic Brits Abroad, getting drunk all day.”
Sure, you get to Vang Vieng and every other bar is showing endless re-runs of Friends and Family Guy but why do people get so upset by this? Many people here have been on the road for months and, in this part of the world, you do need a break from noodles and temples for a few days so why not kick back, watch a bit of Friends whilst eating a pizza and then carry on exploring Southeast Asia when you’re recharged?
However, if that’s all you do here you’re missing out. Once you escape the main street you see a river surrounded by limestone karsts that are an adventurer’s dream; there’s climbing, kayaking, treks etc to keep adrenaline hunters happy.
Vang Vieng was always going to be a place we visited, the Tubing here is seen as a right of passage for people travelling around this part of the world and it is No31 on The List. The Tubing is the main reason this place is on the map, it’s the most fun we’ve had in the last five weeks since we left.
We arrived at the Tubing HQ around 12.30pm. Here you have to sign your life away on a piece of paper and they scribble a number on your arm – presumably to make identification easier when they have to pull you out of the river. You then get your tube (an inflated lorry inner tube) and you cram onto the back of a pick-up and head 3km up the river, the idea being to get in the tube and head down river to (roughly) where you started. I’d pay for that, I really would – it was great fun just floating down the river itself.
What sets tubing apart is what’s along the river. Lining the banks are a series of bars that throw ropes at you hoping you catch them and they pull you in. Each bar is an event in itself with a dj playing music, whisky buckets in full flow and free shots a-plenty. There are also slides, rope swings and zip lines into the river which wouldn’t pass Western safety checks in a million years.
We were dropped off and walked to the first bar. There’s no real method to picking the bars, they’re all pretty similar but you just tend to go where’s busy. At the first bar people were sat on the deck watching others tackle the first rope swing. Pezza & I were quite apprehensive but it only took one BeerLao to get the courage. Our hearts were racing as we climbed the rotten steps and teetered over the edge but as soon as we jumped off the fear went and the adrenaline kicked in.
By the time we got to our third bar Pezza had had a go at the zip lines and was competing with a couple of lads from London to see how impressive a flip off the end they could do. Pezza won as she went down with another girl and they both did a very impressive synchronised somersault at the end!
The final bar we got to had a large slide and the biggest rope swing of them all. Many peope were swinging a couple of times as it was very high and didn’t want to let go at the highest point. I was a bucket or two to the good by this point and manned up. As I let go of the rope at the top my body twisted, I could hear the cheers from the bar turn to worry as I fell 30 feet into the water, ribs first. I am now sporting some mightily impressive bruises all down the right side of my body.
I’d do it again tomorrow.
We didn’t take a camera as we didn’t know how dry we would keep it. This video I found on YouTube is well worth a couple of minutes of your time, it sums it up pretty well. (if you’re reading this in RSS or by email, click here to go to the original post.)
Happy Days!
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ahhhh tubing in vang vieng….such a fun and drunken time
Vang Vieng is awesome , better than the full moon party in thailand , and cheaper too.
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