Day 659 - Tubing down the river

After brekky our group of 11 made our way towards the tubing centre to collect our tubes for the day. Vang Vieng is famous on the South East Asia tour for travellers to come here and tube and drink their way down the river - the antics that go on here are totally festive and give us the impression of what "spring break" is like in the states, with hundreds of young travellers barely-clothed drinking themselves silly and making out in the crowds.

Despite this, we managed to have a great day on the river, with no one in our group hurting themselves more than a few belly-flops from the many swings and slides that are attached to every bar along the way. Back in town it's a case of the walking wounded dominating the streets - it seems like every second person has either bandages on their heads, arms in slings, or plasters in various places - our guesthouse even rents out crutches!!!

During the day we stopped at many of the bars along the way - Adam had a ball busting back flips off swings and managed to walk away with a pink back instead of broken bones! When bars give away multiple free shots of whisky and sell cheap buckets of booze (or mushroom shakes), many people are left without their ability to see the dangers involved in these makeshift swinging toys.

With the sun keeping us warm for the majority of the day it was amazing to slowly float down the river with the karst peaks looming above us, we were never without something to look at, or without someone to talk to.

As we came to the end of our journey we floated by one of the bars that had its black boombox speakers positioned inside a cave where we saw a family of goats just going about their business eating and sleeping - seemingly oblivious to the changes that tourism has inflicted upon a country with such stunning scenery. People's main focus in Vang Vieng is tubing and drinking (which is heaps of fun) but hopefully people don't forget to look around once in a while, and just say wow.

After spending all day on the river (and in the process losing some of our deposit after not getting back by 6pm) we were pretty knackered and spent the evening chilling out on the deck of our guesthouse with the rest of our group.

Adlibing the tubes.

Photos to come ...