Into the North

The night bus from Pakse to Vientiane was unremarkable, except perhaps for the tiny "beds". Luckily Lauren and I got our own two-bed sections to ourselves. We slept well enough and awoke upon arrival at the Vientiane bus station in a steady rain. We boarded the back of a very large tuktuk with about 6 other people and our bags and were transported the 4 km into the city center. We got some coffee and breakfast hoping that the rain would let up, then set out on foot looking for a decently priced open room. We lucked out on the adorably dirty Youth Inn. As Lauren caught up on some Zs, I went explorin'.

Vientiane is the capital of Laos, and is rather modest in size in population when compared with other SE Asian capitals. The sights include a replica of the Arc d'Triomphe, a few hundred thousand wat/temples (per usual), and the crumbling French colonial architecture. Unfortunately we only planned to spend one day here before moving further north, so we did not get to see every corner of the city.

I walked up to the National Museum, umbrella in hand, and explored the dark corridors of that old building looking at prehistoric artifacts and exhibits on the modern history of Laos, that have an unmistakable Anti-American zeal to them (it seems that the facts of Lao history have a well-known Anti-American bias; it must have been all those bombs that were illegally dropped here during 'nam). The English translations were a bit shabby, so I mostly just looked at the pictures and revolution-era weapons.

After that I met up with Lauren and we spent the rest of the day walking around, eating and hydrating. Lauren ran into a friend from Bankok with whom we went out that night, also joining up with Justine, the French girl that we had met on the bus from Pakse. We stayed out until closing time, which is about 11:30 p.m. here.

The next day we rushed to get on our 9:30 a.m. bus to Vang Vieng, and then sat until it departed at 10:45. Just a few kilometers north of Vientiane, the road entered a mountain wonderland of Karst formations covered in lush green vegetation. It was a rough and windy road for the rest of the way, but the scenery more than made up for that fact.

A few hours later we arrived in Vang Vieng and were blown away. This place looked like a scene out of the popular American television series Lost. The small town is set next to the Nam Song River in with tall Karst mountains in the background. If you didn't know abot this town, you might say that this could be the most peaceful place on Earth.... but it's not, thanks to Vang Vieng's having been decisively colonized by that subset of the Western travel scene that views their SE Asian adventure as a non-stop party.

What Vang Vieng is known for, the reason why all the young travelers come here and spend several days to several weeks, is the tubing. And when I say "tubing", it does not properly convey what goes on here. I will explain in due time though.

We walked around the main street for a while, paralleling the river and found an open bungalow on the river island which is reached via a crooked and rickety old wooden footbridge, complete with hammocks and mosquito nets (and even an indeterminate number of pet rats). We dropped our stuff then headed back into the centewr of town for some food. I tried the Lao Laap, a spicy meat salad which I will attempt to make when I get home.

After that we witnessed another interesting spectacle in this town. On one street, there is a string or restaurants that play, on a loop, one of two TV shows: Family Guy or Friends. These shows seem to be perfect after a day of tubing on the river, as the travelers come here and lie like zombies in front of the TV, drinking smoothies or beerlao. So we watched Friends and Family Guy for the rest of the day (Ok, maybe not the whole day).

The next day we tried the tubing. You pay the tube mafia, which has a shop in town, about 50,000 kip plus a deposit, and they give you an inflated truck innertube and a ride 3km upriver to the launching point. And then the debauchery begins. Within the first 50 meters of the river, there are approximately 7 bars, all blasting various types of pop music and offering free shots. Most of these places have built large rope swings, where you climb up a tall platform that has been thrown together with two-by-fours and nails, or jury-rigged water slides. These contraptions range in safeness from moderately dangerous to nearly suicidal. We heard that three people have already died this year from collisions between tubers and jumpers. That's the price you must pay to be in the land of no civil suits. Nonetheless I tried one of the ropeswings with no problems.

As you float downriver in your tube, the barmen throw a lifeline out and try to reel you in. This charade continues for the whole 3 km ride back to town. Luckily the bars and restaurants further down river become a bit more low key and less spring-breaky. That is what the experience felt like though: Spring Break year-round.

We got back to town safely, meeting some floating friends along the way. We went out that night with our new tubing friends and ran into Justine again (It is an interesting phenomenon, how you keep seeing the same people along the traveler's trail). I stayed out until 5:00 in the morning in order to fully enjoy the spirit of this place.

The next day we relaxed around town and enjoyed some wholesome American television. Can you guess what we watched? It was all good fun. We bought our bus tickets for the long road to Lunag Prabang, leaving in the morning, and went to bed early.

me with mr. penguin (that's for you mom)

Up to this point, the North of Laos has been quite a different scene. From what we hear, the North has been on the travel map for many years, while the South has stayed relatively untouched until now. We hope that Luang Prabang, 200 km north of here, is not like Vang Vieng, and we're pretty confident that it will not be.

And now indeed we are in Luang Prabang, but I will save that for another time. And by the way, in case you're worried, that 6.8 earthquake in Burma last night was only a couple hundred km away from us; I didn't feel a thing, but apparently Lauren did.