A Tubbing We Will Go

Everywhere you go in Asia you see people wearing tubing shirts for Vang Vieng. It seemed it was a must stop on our stay in Laos.

The day after Thanksgiving we boarded to bus for Vang Vieng and 5 hours later were here. Vang Vieng was very small and so we hadn't done much research on where to stay. Doug really wanted to stay on the water, so I sat down at a restaurant with our bags while Doug scoured for a room. I ordered a watermelon shake and waited. After about 15 minutes he came back to announce he didn't like anything in one direction so he was going in a different direction. After 10 minutes I was starving and ordered a chicken sandwich and ate half of it - saving the other half for him. Another 15 minutes later I ate the other half. 10 more minutes and I was convinced that he had met someone and was out a bar having drinks while I waited here with all our stuff. Finally, after a small eternity, he returned triumphant.

"I have found the perfect room!" he announced. "It's a bungalow right on the water with a little porch. If I had come 2 minutes later we would have never gotten it and it's $12 for the night. Do you know how hard this is to find?"

I laughed as clearly he had worked very hard to find this place. Doug is a very funny shopper - he has two modes of shopping. Mode one (which is most of the time his mode) - buy the first thing that looks at all fine. Mode two - have a very specific vision and look at every possible option looking to find the very perfect vision which is probably almost impossible to find. I'm always down for shopping, but even I get a bit tired when Doug goes into mode two. It was clear he was in mode two when looking for our room.

Our room was great and in a perfect location - so it was well worth the diligent search. We dropped our stuff and set out to get Doug some lunch and explore Vang Vieng. The main attraction here is tubing so we agreed to check it out the next day.

The late night scene is all about Bucket Bar, which is conveniently located directly next to our hotel. Our first night we headed over there to find that the guy to girl ratio here is about 3 to 1. This made for a very intriguing evening as several guys saw no problem strolling right up to me while I was clearly talking to Doug. I guess they felt that if I was only talking to one other guy, their odds were better than most of the rest of the females. My favorite was the guy who walked up to me, announced he was going to go use the toilet and would be right back. Umm, OK. Doug's favorite was the guy who whacked him in the face with his shirt and then proceeded to sit right in the middle of us.

After a leisurely breakfast we got ready and headed over to the tube place around noon. There must be some sort of deal with the town/government as there is only one place you can get a tube from. If you go between 12:15 and 1:30 the long is quite long - although very short any other time of day. We diligently waited in line, payed our 115,00 kip a person (55,000 for tube rental plus a 60,000 deposit) and boarded the tuk tuk which took us to the starting point.

The way tubing works is that there are bars all along the river and you get in the tube, tube a little, stop at a bar, tube a little more, stop at a bar, etc. We had known this, but where quite taken aback to discover the first bar is all of maybe 25 meters from the starting point. The bars are all crowded together, so all in all between the first bar and the last bar is about 150 meters of tubing, if that. Most of the bars have zip lines - and I got my nerve up to go on the zip line at the second bar. The last bar is the most fun as it also has a water slide. I went down the water slide twice before the sun set and it was way too cold to be in the water.

They have quite a good racket going because from the last bar to the ending point is another 40 minutes of tubing - which given that most people stay until after sunset - would be pitch black and very very cold. No worries - you can pay another 10,000 a person to have a tuk-tuk drive you back. And they pretty much guarantee you get back after 6, so you loose 20,000 kip from your deposit and end up spending 75,000 kip on the tub - which is about $9.

When we got back we were starving - so we hit up the sandwich place for two chicken sandwiches on our way back to our room. The sandwich carts station themselves right outside where the tuk tuk drops you off, as clearly they know their market. This was Doug's second chicken sandwich of the day. We realized the key was still up at the hotel lobby so Doug went back up for two more chicken sandwiches and the key. After we finished them we were still hungry so I headed back up the hill for another chicken sandwich and pancake - bringing Doug's total to 3 and a half chicken sandwiches for the day and me to two and a half. They are the best deal in Vang Vieng at only 10,000 kip a sandwich (slightly over a dollar).

The next morning Doug and I agreed - the tube is useless. You could have hired a tuk tuk to take you down to the start, but Doug and I walked. This was the way better option. It's really easy to walk from bar to bar and you don't have to deal with the hassle of returning the tube at the end of the day.

After two days of tubing Doug and I had felt sufficiently experienced - lightweights compared to the average tuber. We had met a group of guys who were on their 30th day in a row!