Tuesday, 9 July 2013 – Tubing in Vang Vieng, Laos

Vang Vieng was once party central for backpackers in South East Asia.  It was famous for the ramshackle wooden bars lining the Namsong river, water slides, rope swings and zip lines. Fuelled by free shots of local whisky, potent cocktails and drugs, injuries and fatalities occurred with alarming regularity. In January 2013, the Laos government shut down all but 3 of the bars.  Before the government intervened, there were 40 bars and in excess of 400 people would tube down the river each day – this number had now dwindled to around 130 per day.  We took a ride down the river to find out what it was all about.

At noon we arrived at the tubing shed where we each handed over 55,000 Kip for tube hire and 60,000 deposit.  We signed a disclaimer and were warned that if we didn’t return our tubes by 6:00 pm we would be fined 20,000 kip.  We had to wait around until more people arrived to make up numbers.  We were then loaded into a tuk tuk with 6 other people plus tubes and driven 3 kilometres north of town.  There with money and cameras in dry pouches slung around our necks, we clambered into our tubes and headed downriver.

Riding the tube was much easier than we expected. However the water was shallower than we expected as well – sometimes scraping our bottoms on submerged rocks on the shallow river bed. We were carried along by the current and at each ramshackle wooden bar, waiting attendants threw out ropes weighted with plastic bottles of water to haul us in. We stopped at all three bars spending most of our time at the liveliest second bar where you could play petanque, basket ball and volley ball.

We left the third and last bar at a little before 5:00 pm so that we could be back in time to return our tubes without forfeiting our deposits. We thought we had plenty of time but it was quite a long way and we only arrived back in town just after 6:00 pm and just as it started raining.

The last leg of the journey was sublime – we drifted over gentle rapids surrounded by the forest-topped limestone karsts and watched the sun set.