Blog Loglaw: New Zealand: Unemployment Part 6: Vang Vieng and Vientiane

It's been about 4 months since this trip to SE Asia, and as the specific memories fade or blur, it becomes more and more difficult to find the motivation to write about them. The benefit of undertaking something like this, of course, is getting the chance to drub up some forgotten inside joke, remember a moment of clarity or serenity, or conjure a feeling of warm nostalgia. So I soldier on, because even though these posts will become less lucid and exact with time, they will allow future me to reminisce about neglected minutiae.

From the shores of the remote Mekong, our tour hopped a bus that would carry us over a mountain road and (hopefully) deliver us safely to Vang Vieng. Excluding helicopter or small plane, this route is the only way to get from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng. So it felt special. It also felt special because it was treacherous. Our bus languidly wound its way up and down narrow cliff-side roads and through remote Hmong villages, honking to warn oncoming traffic at blind corners and scraping overhanging plants. We stopped midway for another delicious family-style Lao lunch at a rest stop I can only describe as jaw-dropping.

The rest stop sat at the edge of the world. I didn't mind the view.

View interrupted.

Incidentally, that day I was dressed as the most 'SE Asia backpacker' version of myself.

Hand bag curls.

And it's a good thing too, because our destination, Vang Vieng, is the backpacking capital of Laos. Located on the Nam Song River, it also holds the label of former world's most ridiculous party scene. I mentioned it last post but it's probably worth saying again: there are no rules in Laos. Home to cheap and eclectic drugs, dollar banh mi sandwiches, dollar buckets of liquor, dangerous rope swings and cave slides, tuk tuks stuck in the mud, and river-side rain-drenched bars, this is especially evident in Vang Vieng. It's the perfect mix of affordability (of various mind-altering substances), remoteness (4 hours jungle drive to the nearest city), and choice of dangerous activities (guided ostensibly by children as Rhiannon pointed out) to put any easily swayed 18 year old at risk. It's telling that our local guide, Doua, a family man, chose not to leave the vicinity of his hotel for two days.

The first night in Vang Vieng consisted of a blessing from an animist shaman who confusingly gave some people eggs (fertility blessing?) and potato chips, dinner at an Irish pub where 5 drinks were cheaper than a plate of fries, and clubbing at Sakura Bar. The most memorable part of the evening was dancing on an teetering and bouncy wooden platform at Sakura, and of course amassing the free tank tops that come with every drink order.

View from hotel room balcony. The mountains' shapes and colors seemed to change with the time of day, the cloud cover, and my level of hangover.

Jordan and Rhiannon meet for the first time.

In recent years the government of Laos has cracked down on the most dangerous aspects of Vang Vieng. Safety enforcement mainly comes in the form of shutting down river-side bars, dismantling rope swings that jettisoned inebriated tourists into the shallow and rocky water, and enforcing life-jackets while tubing or kayaking. Our tour group went on a 3 hour kayak trip down the river, with a stopover to tube through a cave. There was evidence of the danger that Vang Vieng presented: kayaks tipping some of our tour group into rapids (including the guides who just didn't seem to care), slipping and sliding through a dark cave, and crossing rotting log bridges in the Lao jungle.

Before our cave expedition, Michael, Jordan, and I played some sepak takraw with locals - a no hands volleyball-style game using a small wicker ball.

Into the cave I go, where my headlamp immediately fell to one side and turned off.

That afternoon some of our tour group ventured out of town to Vang Vieng's most famous attractions, the river bars. While most of these are now closed, 4 or 5 of them alternate days they can be open. And the atmosphere is pure intoxicated ecstasy - practically free drinks consumed on rickety wooden platforms with music blasting. We arrived just before one of the heaviest downpours I've ever been in, and yet this only added to the party atmosphere for the 20 or so of us who stuck it out. Afterward, on our twilight drive back into town, our tuk tuks got stuck in the bog mud pits that had formed in the previous three hours. This was no problem for our group, with the Aussie boys jumping out and slogging us through the muck.

Pregame for river bars - beer pong at Kangaroo Sunset Bar, where everyone gets a free tank top.

Michael and I confusingly drink with straws through our shirts. Drew's unabashed joy.

Dakota is fitting in. I've always said he would be a good plank.

It was a pretty big day, and to top it off that night was Halloween. And while I only vaguely participated in the celebrations, everyone else had a huge night. Needless to say I was jealous of the partying but thankful to not be hungover the next day when we had a 4 hour bus trip to Vientiane.

With Vang Vieng behind us, there was a perceptible letting out of the air in our group - the partying climax was over, and we had to sober up in order to do cultural things in the Laotian capital.

I don't have strong memories of Vientiane, because we spent barely spent 24 hours there. We saw (another) massive reclining Buddha, climbed Patuxai (the Lao Arc de Triomph), and learned about the secret war that (you guessed it!) America waged on the Lao countryside. This last bit of history was presented to us at the COPE center, with the "aim to increase awareness about disability in Laos..." and to "present the unexploded ordnance (UXO) problem in Laos and how it links in with disability." Learning that someone had thought up and used cluster bombs on other human beings was particularly horrifying. It was a not so subtle reminder that ongoing woeful poverty in Laos is a direct result of a decades-long convalescence from a war it didn't want.

#americanguilt #dichotomiesinasia