Vang Vieng is one of the most picturesque places I have ever been to. Its famous for its tubing and backpacker community. The town is basically set upon a river that is adjacent to a series of mountain ranges. The mountains are covered in foliage and are quite jagged and really are a beautiful site. It is essentially a 'must-see' stop along the backpacker way.
Now alot of what I will say is based upon what I saw when I was last in Laos. You could see that development was bound to happen given what I have told you above. When I was last there there were only dirt roads, two internet cafes, and a few guest houses. Tubing was organized as and when you wanted to go and the tubing was a quiet tranquil affair (save the small little huts with locals selling Beer Lao and a few zip lines). Well its totally changed and sadly not for the best. The roads are completely paved (ok, that was bound to happen), there are high end internet cafes EVERYWHERE, guest houses on every corner and tubing is operated by hourly tuk-tuks for 4, 6, 8, 10km treks. The business model as it were has totally changed.
From the first corner of the tubing I could her the thunderous beats of 50 Cent and what appeared to be scene out of MTV Spring Break Gone Wild, Volume 2. Where once lay a small little hut and local with a cooler full of beer has been replaced by a multi-tiered paddock with a sound system that would rival most clubs in London. The place was PACKED with americans, aussies, english drinking tonnes of beer and smoking loads of weed. There were easily 60-70 people dancing around and being really really loud (ie ala Spring Break). I were 20 or even 25 this would be awesome - a dream come true- but alas I am no longer in my early 20's. The first 2km were filled with establishments like this. There are actual concrete buildings there now and multi-leveled huts (picture a 3-storey driving range) filled with people getting absoulutely shit faced. I longed for some peace and quiet but could only hear the thunderous beats of the various sound systems competeing for the tubers 'beer Lao money'. All along the way, guest houses and hotels were being erected everywhere you looked. However, after about and hour we passed all that shit and found what we were looking for:Quiet. From there we lazily had a beer or two as we floated along the river in what is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. It was really nice, dipping my head upside down in the river and looking at the mountains and their reflection on the river. It really is an amazing specatacle that everyone should see (even though it can be a bit frustrating).
The evenings were filled with going into town and having a bite to eat and a few drinks. Like before all eating establishments play Friends 24 hours a day on constant rotation. They have now added "'Family Guy" restaurants to the mix -- which is nice. The atmosphere in the town was similar to the West End in London when the pubs let out. People were wasted, yelling loudly, and being generally rude and obnoxious. The way that some of the people speak to the local people is disgusting and you can now see alot of resentment and anger in the people that was NO WHERE to be found 30 months previously.
The next day we rented some push bikes and 'tried' to ride over to the caves about 6km away. Bad move. It was blistered hot and the roads were quite rocky and filled with pot holes. We took a couple detours into the fields which was a bad move. Along the way we almost bum-rushed by a herd of bulls trying to mate with a cow that were stampeding along the side of the dirt road. I thought we were going to be totally trampled and yelled out to Amy as I thought we were going to die. All I could hear was her laughing as apparently she said she had never seen the look of fear in my eyes like that before....ok, im a bit of an urban dweller and the rush of randy bulls makes me move, ok!
We made it about 1km along the track but it was too hard going and are asses were hurting, so we turned around and went into town and went riding the other way out of town, which was quite a lot of fun to see where the locals live and get away from it.
The following day we made our way to Vientienne to meet up with a couple people we met in Luang Prabang for the day (we were off to Bangkok that same evening).
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