The Laotian town reinventing itself as an adventurers paradise, albeit a lingering hangover from its past life as a boozy backpacker hub.
A turbulent journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng is a foreshadowing of the days ahead. An unexpected first hurdle is leaving Luang Prabang bus terminal. Our driver, Phet, is reluctant to set off without squeezing as many people as possible into our compact and poorly-ventilated mini bus. One passenger, growing restless after an hour passes, offers to pay for the extra spaces (I say ‘spaces’ because there are no more seats). Phet, becomingly increasingly irritated by such protests, remains determined to fill the bus. We finally set off, but our relief is short-lived as it quickly becomes apparent that Phet’s liberal attitude to passenger safety also shows up in his actual driving. The roads heading south from Luang Prabang – which were virtually non-existent before the 90’s – are narrow, winding, and poorly-maintained, but do not excuse hitting a cat (with no effort to slow) and later proceeding to drive into an upright and sensibly-placed traffic cone, stalling forcibly. Some fortunate passengers are too spaced out on over-the-counter Valium to react.
Unsurprisingly, I, along with my friends, Alex and Rhiannon, arrive in Vang Vieng later than expected and check into a guest house on the main street. It is short for a main street but home to a large number of hotels, restaurants, bars and tour operators. They are housed in both old French colonial buildings, tall, pale and shuttered, and in smaller huts made from wood and corrugated iron. Eye-catching signboards are displayed high and low, plugging services in bold reds and blues on bright yellow backdrops. Telephone and internet cables hang clumsily between them, propped up by utility poles where narrow roads intersect. This once quiet village had developed quickly to cater for tourism. This is in part due to the popularity of tubing, which put Vang Vieng on the tourist trail in Southeast Asia.
Tubing in Vang Vieng
Tubing is like bar-crawling except you float down a river in a blow-up rubber ring, stopping at various makeshift bars which line the riverbank. Tubing in Vang Vieng was an institution in the late nineties and noughties but the Laotian government cracked down the ‘activity’ in 2012 after there were multiple accidents and even deaths as a result of drunken behaviour on the river. Some sources report 20+ deaths in a single year. Now, only a handful of bars remain open and the swings, water-slides and zip-lines which accompanied the drinking shacks are long-since closed. A move that seems to have allowed Vang Vieng to reinvent itself. It is recognised for its idyllic landscape of rice paddies and limestone mountains on the banks of the Nam Song. It attracts more intrepid travellers who want to discover it on foot, by kayak or even from a hot air balloon rather than a punctured dingy. That said, more regulated tubing remains somewhat popular and available to those who wish to partake. We do wish to partake and arrange to go tubing on our third day, allowing some time for more wholesome exploration first.
The Blue Lagoons(s) and Pha Nguen Viewpoint
The following morning we leave town to visit the Blue Lagoon. Or a blue lagoon – according to the internet there are multiple blue lagoons with similar features (jumps, rope swings, zip-lines and balance beams), ‘secret’ lagoons and even ‘fake’ lagoons. At the advice of a tuk-tuk driver, we avoid Blue Lagoon 1 – supposedly the most popular and crowded lagoon – and visit Blue Lagoon 3 followed by Blue Lagoon 2.
From Vang Vieng, Blue Lagoon 3 is a 17km drive through remote villages, across paddies and alongside herds of cattle trampling down dirt roads. We arrive at an elongated pool, a shade of teal in the shadow of a limestone karst. As promised, it is quiet and secluded. Empty picnic benches run parallel to the waters edge on the side at which we enter. We are given bright orange life jackets before stepping into the rippling water; its coolness a relief in the midday humidity. Looking around, I see makeshift swings hanging from drooping tree branches, their seats resting just beneath the waters surface. A balance beam takes centre stage, a young man hanging below it, sloth-like and anxious to make another move that may send him plunging into the water below. Across the lagoon, a steel cable runs between two wooden crane-like structures, a decapitated set of handle bars hanging midway down the cord. I grip them tightly as I hurtle through the air and hit the water’s surface with a splash, grateful there aren’t many witnesses to my swimsuit malfunction.
On route back to Vang Vieng town, we stop at Blue Lagoon 2. It is a large, disc-shaped turquoise pool with yellow-green algae in the shallows. A row of wooden huts run adjacent to the water, offering an unobstructed view the lagoon’s prime feature: a drop jump from a wooden platform suspended 10 metres above the pool. Happy to spectate as others take turns to jump, I think to myself that the assorted apparatus spoil the lagoons. What’s more, it changes the way visitors relate to them, reducing them to waterparks in a region of beautiful natural phenomena. The late afternoon shade creeps into my space and pulls me from my thoughts. A sign it’s time for us to make our final stop before sundown.
A short walk from Blue Lagoon 2, is Pha Ngeun Peak. It is a steep 30-minute climb to the top – a scramble up tall, rocky steps whilst trees obscure the dimming afternoon light – but we rewarded with a spectacular view from Vang Vieng’s highest point. Wary of a clumsily constructed wooden viewing platform, I shuffle cautiously towards a ridge of jagged rock and perch on a flatter section. For the first time, I am struck by how vast the landscape surrounding Vang Vieng is. A patchwork of pastures and paddies with protruding limestone crags, which grow smaller toward a horizon of hot air balloons. Smoke arises from lego-size dwellings as mopeds dart about the roads like ants in the cracks of a pavement, away from the miniscule lagoons. The coexistence of agriculture and adventure enterprise which now make up the town’s economy. We quietly watch the sun set for a while but make sure to begin our descent before it disappears below the cliffs.
Shroom Shakes
After a long day of activities, and with the knowledge I had to be up for tubing in the morning, I decide that now would be an excellent time to try – for the first time – some strong hallucinogenic drugs. An establishment on the main street which seems to be modelled on your typical Deutsch coffee shop sells ‘shroom shakes’ and Alex and I decide to split one. Alex is happy to go and order our shakes alone until I remind him to ‘ please make sure my shroom shake is vegan’ and then I have to come too as there is ‘no way’ he is going to sound like ‘that much of a wanker.’ Shroom shakes in Vang Vieng are indeed 100% vegan (and free from gluten and refined sugar for anyone wondering) and are a wholesome mix of bananas, mushrooms and water. They have a very earthy taste and are barely distinguishable from a standard Vitamix blend – up to one hour post-consumption, anyway.
Unfortunately, I make the rookie error of having another shake in relatively quick succession after feeling like ‘nothing is happening’ and soon I am sitting in the hallway of my guesthouse staring at my outstretched hands and wondering why they are small and cracked and don’t belong to me.
Tubing
As I battle to get myself to the agreed pre-tubing meet point the following morning, I am thankful that tubing requires next to no preparation. It is recommended that you bring as little as possible as anything you can’t fit into a dry-bag is going to get soaked. We manage to squeeze twenty plus backpackers into two vans which drop us at the Tubing Office where we collect our rubber rings.
There is a 60,000 KIP [£3] tube rental fee and a 20,000 KIP [£1] tube deposit which is refundable so long as the tube was returned by 8pm. We sign a waiver – filling us with confidence – before we are squished back into the tuk-tuks (rubber rings and all) and set off to the starting point of our tubing route. Boarding a tube is unflattering and deceptively difficult as you have to find a spot in the river which is fairly deep and has a bit of current going on if you want a smooth take-off. Just as I am getting used to navigating the river in a tube, the first bar comes up quickly on the right. I paddle frantically to get into reaching distance of the staff employed to fish people from the river with a plastic bottle on the end of a long rope (yes, really). I notice one woman struggling to complete this task. She stands in the shallows with her wrap skirt hiked, doubled over with loud, infectious laughter directed at the gracelessness of the disembarking tubers.
The river bar itself looks like a bamboo shack with benches and mats out front. There isn’t an extensive drinks menu but I can order a bottle of cider which makes me very happy as there are few and far between in Southeast Asia. I sit cross-legged on a mat and look out to the river as I sip, surprised at the relative calm. It is short-lived as the second and final bar is much more lively than the first, which I attribute to a playlist of 80’s ballads, the spirit and mixer buckets and ‘noss’ balloons flying all over the shot. But the sun is out, people are dancing and the atmosphere is good. We remain at this bar for the rest of the afternoon, only getting back on the river once the sun starts to set. Floating down the river with the sunset is ambient and spoilt only by a slight concern that we are going to get stranded on the river in the dark. Fortunately, tuk-tuk drivers are well accustomed to the misdemeanours of tubers and wait at the more obvious river exits to offer rides back to town.
After several days of questionable, intense activity, it is time to leave for Vientiane, the Laotian capital. It’s almost a given that one will leave Vang Vieng exhausted either from adventuring, partying, or both. Our own journey out of Vang Vieng is almost as dramatic as our arrival as Rhiannon, feeling queasy after a tofu street snack (or empathically feeling the aftermath of my substance misuse), throws up violently as the minibus drives off into the distance.
All photo credits: Rhiannon Armitage.