21 December 2005
Vang Vieng has gotten a bad rap because of all the drugs and backpackers allegedly turning it into one big party place. We pencil in two nights for this small town, which has become a popular rest stop for those traveling between Vientiane and Luang Prabang. We end up staying for four and could easily have stayed a week or so longer. What we did not count on was the absolutely stunning vistas of limestone cliffs.
We stay at Les Jardins de Vang Vieng (- a 10 to 20 minute walk from the main drag, depending on how much you've had to drink), which is not the Les Jardins you read about in the guidebooks. We find out that the owners of that one had to leave the country and some enterprising folk from Vientiane took over the name and its reputation. Although lacking any visible jardin to speak of (- they were working on it though when we were there), what the place has going for it is its spot by the river, right in front of the cliffs. It was hard to tear ourselves away.
The view from the guesthouse's restaurant. And, right below that balcony, was the scene below:
The guesthouse.
The huts.
The artwork.
At the end of the day, it was all about the view.
For those on the lookout for drugs, it is everywhere. As soon as we get off the bus, all the restaurant signs in front of the terminal advertise happy pizzas, mushroom shakes, and special teas. Several travelers mention to me that it is legal here, which I think most people would like to believe because of its widespread availability, but all the guidebooks – and common sense – still warn that it is illegal.
We find Friends Street on our first night. I don't know its actual name but the street has earned the nickname from all the restaurants along the strip doing non-stop screenings of the TV hit show "Friends". Fantastic for those with addled minds. As a matter of fact, the whole town is vegetative-state friendly, and all the restaurants have lounges instead of chairs with tons of plump pillows, perfect for those in a drug-induced stupor.
The "den" we have chosen has several television sets so that even if someone sits up in front of you, you can always catch what's going on on another screen without having to lift your head from the pillow. We settle in for about five episodes, which are more than Sue has ever seen in her life, but is pretty much normal for me since I am, after all, a couch potato** and a die-hard advocate of movie and DVD marathons.
[**At that time, I was writing a newspaper opinion column with a friend called The Couch Potatoes.]
We wander about town, and use the computers at Wonderland Internet Cafe. It is run by a Singaporean who will also download whole albums onto your iPod for $1. I give him $12 and he downloads about 14 into my 60gig.
The next day, we explore the charming village across the river, which we have already taken tons of photos of from our guesthouse.
It costs 2000 kip one-way to cross the bridge, which is nothing really, but they don't even give you a receipt so you have to wonder who is keeping the money from this business. (We are told that one village chief pockets most of it.)
Two guys we meet later on said they crossed on motorbikes and were charged 15,000 kip ($1.50) one-way. They stopped at one of the caves and one of them forgot to lock his fuel pump. He came back to find most of his fuel siphoned off, with just enough left for him to return to the village. Which is pretty considerate, considering...
We wander about for a long time and take pictures of various rural scenes and the mountains.
Then we spot a bar along the river and decide to stop for Beerlao, which is the only thing they are serving anyway since, we are told, this is their very first day of business. They are celebrating their grand opening with some Lao Lao (Lao whiskey – very lethal) and I comply with a few shots.
The next day, we sign on with Green Discovery Tours for some kayaking and trekking. We choose this particular outfit because Sue has read about them and she says they should at least be organized and know what they are doing. We let go of these expectations straight away when they are VERY LATE picking us up at the guesthouse. They tell us it is because the guy who signed us up the day before went off on a tour and failed to inform everyone else that we were supposed to get picked up. Right-ho. Along the way, later on, the guide gets lost several times on the path to and from a cave. I suppose it could have been worse.
We are getting organized at the riverbank and our guide hands us life jackets. Sue and Deb look at theirs disdainfully. "Uh, we don't want to wear these," they say. "We're very good swimmers," they promise. The guide shrugs then proceeds with the briefing. Afterwards, I approach the girls and tell them that I had been rafting in Indonesia and Malaysia, and if there are rapids in the river then they should wear the life jackets. Sue says the briefing changed her mind and they both don their vests.
I partner up with Ana, a German girl, and I position myself in the rear (- the person seated in front paddles while the one at the back steers the boat), but I quickly learn that kayaking on a river is very different from the oceans that I am used to. The swift currents make the boat unstable and it is highly vulnerable to every stroke of the paddle. I am finding it hard to maneuver the kayak. My partner informs me that she has been river kayaking for the past six years, so we agree to change places halfway through.
We stop and trek through the mountains and the guide gives us head torches to we explore a huge cave.
Bear in mind that I am still wearing those beaded flip-flops (with my skin back on*) and everyone is surprised at how well they are holding up. (Deb has already had her shoes re-soled in Vientiane and Sue has her Birkenstocks repaired later on.)
*I started writing a series of e-mails that I entitled "Asian Fables", which chronicled our trip from Manila to Kuala Lumpur to Chiang May and then onto Laos. The Laos entries begin at Asian Fables 4 and, previous to that, I had mentioned that I was wearing new beaded flip-flops that had been taking my skin off, and Sue and Deb kept teasing me about them because my feet were covered with plasters.
After lunch, Ana and I trade places and she is doing a fantastic job and I wish I had her take charge of the boat the whole way.
After one particular harsh turn in the river, our guide instructs us to turn the boats around to watch the others and make sure they make it around the bend. One kayak overturns but the two Germans on it quickly surface and float along with their boat.
Then I see Sue and Deb going over fast. Sue hurtles into the branches of a tree and I see her trying to get under them but she is caught and holding onto the boat, which is being dragged away by the currents. Soon the kayak flips and our guide is screaming for us to catch whatever heads our way.
"The water bottles, the water bottles! The paddles, the paddles! The boat, the boat!"
Soon, the self-proclaimed "good swimmers" are floating down towards us, waving cheerfully. We flip the kayak over and are happy to find Sue's dry bag still attached to it with all the contents safe and sound. Deb's dry bag has held up as well but she's lost her $200 sunnies and Sue's lost a skirt.
"We are not amused."
We regroup down the river and stop at the organic mulberry farm where they are making tea and scarves from the mulberry silk worms.
Remnants of war as decor.
This is also the starting point for those going tubing down the river so, when we head off again, we are surrounded by lots of loud drunken travelers floating down the river in large tractor inner tubes.
We make another stop to check out Non Cave, which is a mega-ass cave for what it is called. We wade in freezing water up to our waists just to get in and Deb is not too happy that her legs are short.
There are bars all alongside the river now, to cater to the "tubers" on the river. If you want to stop, they haul you in with a bamboo stick and you can have a few beers or slide down a rope or jump off a platform or however way you wish to injure yourself in the name of having a good time. Most of the people we see jumping or sliding have awful landings, and a guy I meet later on has several injuries from attempting various stunts along the river during his tubing excursions. (Most travelers have, at least, two goes down the river.) Towards where most tubers get off, there are more restaurants/bars with lounges so that you can chill by the river while other tubers pass you by.
Of course, we go tubing the next day. But it's very late in the day and the sun has gone down and our butts are in the cold water while the chilly Beerlaos in our hands are freezing our upper bodies. Plus the current does not seem too strong today so we have to paddle with our arms a lot. We got our tubes from our guesthouse so that we could float all the way down there and not have to take the tubes back anywhere else. We never make it to the guesthouse. It's too damned cold and we hail a tuktuk halfway along the riverbank. Ah well, it was fun while it lasted.
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