Vang Vieng: Tubes, Torrential Rain and Too-Much-Alcohol

Short one today...it’s 1.30am and I should sleep sometime soon as I have a train at 09.20.

...oops never wrote it, overslept, missed train anyway...oops...

So whilst travelling in Laos, I ended up at a small, riverine town called Vang Vieng. I’ll say more about the town itself in a later blog; what I want to talk about now is the town’s most famous attraction; tubing on the nearby Nam Xong river. Well, I say tubing, the town is actually famous for the hedonistic bars you visit whilst tubing.

Now, normally all this fun wouldn’t be my scene at all. But, I felt that I would be letting my few readers down if I couldn’t describe in intricate, drunken detail what tubing is like.

I am doing this for you all.

Definitely not for me.

Definitely.

I decided to start the day with a breakfast fitting for the trials facing me.

This was only part of it - fruit & cereal came after.

We had planned to do the Blue Lagoon in the morning, but my stomach had other ideas, and so I decided we should just get on with tubing earlier, staying at or near bars where there amenities if I needed them.

Also, alcohol totally cures stomach bugs right? The vodka kills all the germs….definitely.

Before we headed out tubing, we headed back to the hostel to leave behind everything non-essential to tubing and drinking. The phone and wallet were left behind, to be replaced by my old camera and a waterproof pouch stuffed with a few monopoly notes of Laotian kip.

Divested of anything that could be damaged by river water, we headed down to the tube rental office on the main street of Vang Vieng, and waited our turn in the queue to pay for our tubes. Ahead were some really, really obnoxious Spaniards who seem to be intent on asking annoying, impertinent questions to the staff. It’s little wonder the staff seem intent on ripping off travellers when that’s what they have to deal with.

Having signed my life away on a quite extensive tube rental agreement (seriously, renting a moped was less paperwork), we hoped on the back of a tuk-tuk, and headed 20 minutes upriver to the first bar on the route that day, where we were greeted by a free shot of lao-lao (local whisky) and a string bracelet (which I presumed they used to work out who had received free shots). It was off to a good start.

Sadly, we were swiftly dismayed to realise we were one of the first groups to arrive. We had got there at about 11.30am, and swiftly realised that for the majority of backpackers, many of which had probably spent the previous day and night drinking, this was far too early. We settled down with a cheeky early drink and admired the scenery whilst we waited for the bar to fill up.

Waiting for chaos.

You can understand why the original tubers came here.

After a drink or two, and a brief run back to the hostel to pick up more money (alcohol is of course overpriced at the tubing bars; bring enough money to allow for this!), the bar was filling up nicely, and the drinking games began. Niko and I decided to stay out of the one pictured below, as we did not feel like being hit by water balloons or having alcohol poured over us. We obviously just were not drunk enough…

Didn't look that fun.

Eventually we decided we should perhaps move on, so we went to find our tubes.

Wait…

Which tube??? tubes? SO MANY TUBES!!!!

We never did find our tubes; we were just told to grab any so we rummaged through and took two of the least deflated, and walked down to the river. To avoid the kayakers and the drunk people lounging in the shallows, I ended up standing in some rapids where I could barely keep my tube from floating away. Eventually when I had a grip of tube, camera, money and sunglasses, we were off down the river….for 300 metres before we encountered the next bar.

Kayaking looked too much like exercise.

I felt I needed to try them all out, you know, to blog the best blog I can blog.

Again, we were the first here, so we had more free shots, more bracelets, and more drinks to wait for the crowd to catch up. In the meanwhile, I taught Niko and some girls from our hostel how to play spoof, and gradually the tubes on the dock below mounted, and the bar filled up.

The tube mountain was growing.

Suitably inebriated, we headed onwards to the next bar, where there were more bracelets and shots, and something altogether more fun.

A MUD BATH

So much fun!

After attempting to wash the mud off me (fairly unsuccessfully, as I found mud in my ear about four days later), I rewarded myself for the exercise of climbing, crawling and swimming through mud with a proper Gin & Tonic, where I specified and supervised them pouring actually Gordon’s gin into my glass. I was getting fed up of being served ‘gin’ which is obviously just lao-lao bleached of its shade of light brown.

I enjoyed my G&T dancing to Katy Perry on the bare decking of the club, surrounded by complete strangers who were instantly best friends, overlooking the beautiful river and karst mountain scenery. Oh Laos.

On to Bar no.4. Niko took the opportunity given to him by holding my camera to take some frankly appalling pictures.

I sure he was aiming for awful crotch shots...

Point proved.

Thanks Niko.

I am however glad I let Niko look after my waterproof pouch containing money and camera, as during this stretch of river I managed to lose pretty much everything else.

It started with my sunglasses falling off my head into the water. I tried to rescue them, and in doing so fell off my tube, and ended up being dragged along the river bed, my bottom bumping on the larger stones. I just kept hold of my tube, but in the chaos lost my T-Shirt and my sunscreen as well as the sunglasses which i couldn’t find.

I was having a successful day…

The fourth bar was...messy. I don’t remember exactly what happened; I can only recall vague snippets.

Drunken antics.

At some point the Macarena came on and I taught a group of South Africans what the moves were to the song….

Drunken antics - macarena??? sexy macarena perhaps?

At some point, myself and a German woman called Eve decided we should get married, only for us to want a divorce ten minutes later because I had cheated on her with her mother father grandfather….

Seemingly very sexy macarena.

I don’t really remember what went on.

I was drunk. It was fun. My parents read this blog so I can’t say much more than that.

Eventually it was time to head onto the last bar on the river. By this point, a tropical storm had closed in, and tubing on the river, you could barely breathe through all the rain. I have never been so wet before.

The last bar was a dead flop, and it was raining hard, so we decided to catch a tuk-tuk back into town rather than tube back into town.

The tuk-tuk driver, like all tuk-tuk drivers, was a bastard, and refused to leave without payment in advance.

The reason why he demanded this was evident when we broke down on the outskirts of town.

Conveniently, his friend had a tuk-tuk sat just across the road, and we were all transferred onto this other tuk-tuk and taken the rest of the journey.

We conveniently arrive back at the rental shop just after 6pm, thereby each losing 20000K of our deposit.

It was all very convenient for the rental office. It was yet another example of things in Laos being ‘convenient’ for the local touts and tuk-tuk drivers, and ‘inconvenient’ for travellers.

....

Convenient.

Left with a sour taste in our mouths from that episode, we headed back to the hostel for a much needed shower and rest, before heading out for food. I was sobering up, and fell asleep in the restaurant, only to wake up when my food arrived, and tip boiling hot cheese down my leg.

Smooth.

My leg that is, now I’ve burnt all the hair off.

…

Aside from the few complaints I have about cheese and deposits, it was an absolute brilliant day, and I was sad that I only had chance to do tubing once, as I feel you need a day to make all the rookie errors and work out what is going on. However, despite the bad press, tubing was an absolute blast, and is completely worth the trip to Vang Vieng.

If nothing else, I gained some bracelets for my wrists.

DSP

Useful Information:

• Tube Rental (and transfer to the first bar) costs 50000K, plus a 65000K deposit. You lose 20000K of deposit if you return the tube after 6pm, and after 8/9pm, you lose the entire deposit, making the tube yours.
• Whole setup is designed to ensure you arrive back after 6pm, so just accept you’ll lose that part of deposit.
• There are 5 bars along the river, all within the first kilometre of the river. Those open change day-by-day.
• Tubing does not get busy much before 1pm.
• Everyone always makes the cardinal sin of not bringing enough money. Beers start at around 20000K, and a spirit and mixer 25000-35000K. Don’t just bring a 100000K note and think that will cover it. It will not. You will be sad that by the third bar you are sober because of your poverty.

Pai Day 1: I LOVE PAI

Pai was a slightly unexpected highlight of my travels in northern Thailand. A small, remote mountain town, famous for hippies, local artists and beautiful countryside accessible by numerous motorbikes.

Really doesn’t sound like me, does it?

But Pai is much more than mushroom shakes and wannabe-hipsters with unwashed dreadlocks and diminutive top-knots. The atmosphere is by far the most relaxed I’ve encountered in Thailand, and it has a distinctively local feel, despite ouvertly being a tourist town(/trap, depending on your opinion of the road to the town). The small town of c.10000 have managed to attract and retain the tourists whilst retaining some of what attracted the initial unwashed pioneers: the friendly vibe, cool(er) temperatures, and a  stunning countryside.

Adorable little mountain town...with drugs and motorbikes.

Pai situation contributes much to its charm, as it is nestled in its own valley 120km from Chiang Mai, and is cut off from the world except for a handful of access roads, which results in much less traffic and a real feeling of getting away from real life. The scale of the surrounding valley results in much of Pai’s natural attractions being only a short moped ride through paddy fields, primary forest, and tidy local villages.

It is just a sweet, little town that I loved as soon as I arrived.

Walking Street at night in Pai.

So many rivers, so many arty reflection pictures.

Misty mornings over mountains.

However, whilst the town was special, my hostel was somewhat less special. I had booked in for two days at Happy House Pai, and it just wasn’t for me. The owner was really friendly and helpful; the hostel was welcoming and comfortable; and the dorm was pretty alright. However, the vibe just wasn’t for me. The common area was full of around a dozen Canadian guys in their late-20s or older, who spent every evening watching hockey re-runs on a projector. I was the only European in the hostel, and it was telling in my lack of passion for men-almost-dancing-on-ice. The situation certainly wasn’t improved by being unable to socialise in my hostel due to one girl with food poisoning who insisted on the lights being kept off, and the noise being kept down.

Nice hostel, but not for me.

But I still needed to find some people with which to get drunk enjoy Pai, so I decided to book onto a tour on my first full day to one of the more remote natural attractions in the region; Lod Cave.

The cave turned out to be spectacular, but my attempts to find friends were less successful. There were six people on the tour; myself, and a group of five friends from Bristol. They were friendly enough, and talked to me, but it was painfully obvious they would have preferred that I weren’t there.

But I quickly gave up on them too, and had a good time nevertheless at the caves. The trips there and back were in a decent 4WD vehicle, and there was trashy pop songs playing from the driver’s iPod, so I was content.

Unsure what this was advertising - tribal village, sex show, toilets?

From the outside, the cave isn’t massively impressive, but it’s sheer scale becomes apparent as you approach it.

Rather unprepossessing from a distance.

The cave is accessed by small hand-made bamboo rafts that float on the shallow river that flows through the cave. Entering the cave on these tiny craft, the cavern illuminated solely by the lanterns held by the guides, was incredibly atmospheric, and gave me a brief Indiana Jones moment.

Our last sight of daylight for several hours.

This little lantern lit our way....when the guide was not obscuring it...

Within the pitch black cave, there were several groups of tourists being led by local lantern guides around the cave’s many chambers. Our guide showed us huge stalactites plunging down from the murky cave ceiling, and their sister stalacmites reaching up from the cave floor to reach them. We were led past intricate, sparkling rock formations, and waterfalls cascades of rock left by now-dried up rivers. There were ancient cave paintings, and mysterious, prehistoric ancient stone coffins left by an unknown people.

Our guide also pointed out multiple ‘penis’ rocks.

There’s no accounting for good taste.

Of course, I attempted to photograph all these wonders within this dark, underground chasm...but my phone camera is not all that successful in poor light, and the flash would have disturbed the bats and birds roosting above our heads.

Rock fountain - when you stand in front of it, it sparkles and shimmers as water runs over it.

Stalactites with intricate folds and patterns.

Despite the incredible, dimly-lit, natural wonders surrounding me, of much more immediate interest to me was the rickety narrow wooden staircases that led to the higher reaches of the cave. Illuminated by only a candle, they were spooky, slightly terrifying, and a brilliant photo opportunity.

Spelunking in the dark, without even a helmet or torch. Lod cave is hardcore ;)

Hard to see I admit, but that is a staircase leading up into a cavern near the roof.

What the photos here cannot capture is the smell and sound and humidity of the cave. They were cool, but incredibly humid and dank, and the sweat just ran off your face and body onto the cave floor, never evaporating. The caverns were filled with unseen insects, squeaking bats, and chirping swiftlets, which combined in an overwhelming cacophony of echoing, chaotic noise that made it hard to hear the guide at times. And of course, these large numbers of animals made large amounts of droppings, and the cave smelt. It smelt bad. There were sections nears the openings where you could barely breathe because of all the...guano produced by the swiftlets.

The cave was undoubtedly fun, but had a unnerving effect on the senses. Your eyes were starved of information, groping in the dark to make out the next overhang or swooping pair of wings. Meanwhile your senses of smell and hearing were overwhelmed with the sheer concentration of noise and...well...shit.

It wasn’t an entirely fun experience, so I was glad when we could finally begin the see the light at the end of the tunnel.

There's a light on the horizon

We're getting closer now.

Closer....

Out! And being surrounded by swooping swiftlets was an added bonus.

Liberated from the humid, death-cave, we got back into our blissful AC jeep, and headed back to town, via a local waterfall.

It was dry season, so there really wasn’t a lot of water, but it was amusing to slide down the smooth rocks into the rock pools.

There was more people than water at these falls. And the water dribbled rather than fell...

After a day of caving and waterfall climbing, I was fairly wiped, so I spent my late afternoon wandering around town, soaking up the chill atmosphere, and sampling the iced coffees of different cafes. Gathering stormclouds and a strengthening winds persuaded me to slink back to my hostel to avoid an impromptu (but very needed) outdoor shower, and I spent the evening watching repeats of ‘Last Man on Earth’ on the hostel projector, and eating burgers with mad Canadians.

It was a good day in an awesome town.

Tomorrow I do some independent exploring of Pai, with this awesome green babe.

My green heroine.

DSP

Bangkok: Couchsurfing and Cycling

First a brief introduction into Couchsurfing; it is a website/organisation where travellers can request to stay on a local’s couch/spare room/floor. Hosts can also offer to host travellers, or ‘surfers’ as they are called in CS terminology. There should not be any money involved, as the idea is rather to exchange knowledge and culture and ideas. It’s all very hippie really. There are also forums and groups to ask advice and find travel buddies, and events to meet up with potential travel buddies, or hosts (as well as have fun).

I have had some brilliant experiences with it whilst hosting in Oxford, and overwhelmingly in Bangkok, Couchsurfing has enabled me to meet some brilliant travellers and locals, and has really improved my experience of Bangkok and will hopeful contribute to the rest of my trip.

So, by this point, I had already attended a CS meet-up on my first full day in Bangkok, and got very drunk playing Thai drinking games. All very fun. On Friday, I had my first surfing experience with the awesome-but-at-times-too-shy James.

My Couchsurfer host, and my very effeminate milkshake!

I met him near his apartment (I was a teeny tiny bit lost as Bangkok does do road signage) and he showed me in, let me take a shower, and then we headed out to Khao San Road backpacker ghetto, where he showed me around and gave me some brilliant recommendations.

The awful, the brilliant, the addictive Khao San Road.

Neon lights!

We eventually ended up at a local noodle place (well it was full of farang (foreigners) but the cook was Thai and it is more authentic than the Irish bar or Burger King!) where I was able to find out about his life and family, and able to wrangle a cheeky Thai lesson out of him. I can now count (badly) to 10 in Thai.

nunngg, sonng, saaam, seee, aaaaah, hoh, jet, pat, gOw, sip

(This is of course not how they are spelt, just how I remember the strange tones and sounds.)

I felt bad but by about 10pm, I was really flagging; I had been up since 6am seeing markets and travelling, so I really needed some sleep. James I reckon thought I was boring of our conversation, and looked slightly crestfallen, but was OK heading back. I was asleep within about 5 minutes of coming back...I feel I was not a good surfer that night.

My bad surfer vibe was not helped the following morning when I headed out at 8.30 to a Couchsurfer cycling tour across the other side of the city. I invited James, but upon describing cycling around a rural river island he looked at me as if I were mad, and declared he was going shopping instead. Certainly the cooler option.

The view from James's apartment; he was very nonchalant about it.

I accidentally arrived ludicrously early to the meeting point in the MRT, and sat there sweating for 20 minutes before other people arrived. Eventually around 15 people arrived for the tour, which was lead by a rather….assertive host who literally shoved us into taxes to the ferry port. I just started saying ‘Yes Maam’ everything she told me to do something; she pretended to be annoyed, but secretly she loved it.

We're on a boat!!!

The biggest problem for me when cycling abroad is the bicycles. They are always these great,heavy, wrought-iron, Victorian beasts that have no gears and nowhere near strong enough brakes to stop their massive momentum. They are always hugely front-heavy, with huge curved handlebars and a basket jutting out ahead, which means when turning the bike leans precariously. To put it bluntly, I HATE RENTAL BIKES!

My displeasure with my assigned Victorian beast was compounded by the situation in which we were cycling; the island is very low-lying, surrounded by the Chao Phraya, and bisected by hundreds of khlong, so is very susceptible to flooding. The locals all live in stilt houses, and the roads and paths are correspondingly also raised on stilts.

These paths are about 60cm across at most, and make tight right-angle turns regularly.

Below these stilt paths are a two metre drop, and then if you’re lucky, crops and grass. If you’re unlucky, mangrove and water.

My bike only stays upright when I cycle in a straight line.

It was terrifying, but in a mostly good way. It did however make me curse the decision not to bring a waterproof camera.

This was a nice path, hence my ability to photograph while cycling.

I'm the leader. I'm the leader. I'm the leader of the gang I am!

The fear is real when seeing what you could fall into.

One first stop on the island was a Siamese Fighting Fish farm. These fish are bred and raised to fight each other as a form of entertainment; aquatic cock fighting if you will. They did a demonstration where they put two fish in separate jars next to each, and a piece of card between them, with the idea being when they removed the card they would start trying to fight each other through the glass.

It was less fighting, more staring at each other with blank expressions. Very fiersome!

fish...

Sirrr! I challenge thee to staring contest. Grrr!!!

I look like I am modelling water...why was this my chosen pose....

Next was the ‘floating market’. I was really excited as this was something I really wanted to see. However, it was most definitely on stilts on dry land, and more near water than on water. However, it was still a brilliant market, focusing on snacks and food. The food was very, very good, most likely because we had locals to recommend the best places to eat.

Most definitely not floating.

After our food pit-stop, there was more hot cycling through some beautiful scenery, such as this:

Insta-photo!

There were some cold drinks here:

This island has a problem with erroneous titles. This was called a Treehouse.

And there were views like this on ferry back to the city:

Surprisingly cloudy sunset!

It was a good day.

Unsure if this is a good photo of me or not...

I thought the evening was over when we disembarked in Khlong Toey, but Nong (our gracious if slightly militaristic host) invited everyone to eat at a brilliant food court. Here was where I began to feel guilty, as I hadn’t seen my own host all day, and he was beginning to sound a little irritated at me continuing to extend the time I spent out that day. But loads of people of the CSers were going, so I tagged along too.

I might have had the best Pad Thai ever.

I definitely did have the cheapest sushi I’ve ever had.

Not the best view, but it was super!

My apologies for the lack of photos of said brilliant food, but it was that good I didn’t even think of my phone camera. Sorry Instagram, you were deprived of several dramatically-filtered food photos. However will you manage!

By 9pm, I decided I should probably head back to my host, who lived 25km across the city (and the river, which made the taxi driver very very irritated). When I got back, things were a little awkward, and I made the decision to check back into my hostel. Nothing against my host, he was friendly and welcoming. Just Couchsurfing requires a certain amount of interaction between host and surfer, and today I hadn’t spent more than about 10 minutes with my host, and knew that the following day I wanted to sleep and relax before spending more time with my new found friends from the bike tour. I just didn’t have the time to give my host, and felt guilty treating him as a hotel, so I left. I believe I insulted him, but personally, I felt much better leaving him than abusing his hospitality.

DSP