"I am sure there must be more to Vang Vieng..."

Another roller-costar ride in a minivan took us to Vang Vieng. If Luang Prabang is a place for the older tourists, Vang Vieng is the place for the younger ones. You can easily tell of course, but one rock solid indicator is that in Vang Vieng, they don't sell fabric on the markets, but sunglasses in sharp colors, and t-shirts with the BeerLao logo printed across the chest. Anywhere in Laos you can buy a big BeerLao (640 ml) for 1 USD. The beer is the best we have encountered so far on this trip, and they always serve it cold as ice.
I am sure that none of you who are reading this blog have heard about this place, and I had not before I came to China, but it will soon be known all over the world. Young people go to Bali, Gran Canaria, Cancun or the Greek island of Kos to party, but no one thinks about going to Vang Vieng before they have been here. Vang Vieng is for sure the best town in this world when it comes to partying. And no matter how tired you are, and no matter how many days you planned on staying, you always stay longer than intended. The place is filled with travelers, but no one looks like backpackers. These tourists could just as well have walked up from the sandy beaches in Spain, as in the jungles of South East Asia. Here are no hippies, free thinkers or weird loners that have not seen anyone from their part of the world in ages. The bars give out free drinks all day and all night, the food is cheap, and the accommodation is not even worth mentioning. You could easily live off of ten dollars a day, eating a lot of food, paying for your room, and have as much alcohol that it would get 20 people dead drunk. You cannot do that in Bali or Kos. That is why the Swedish and Canadian groups of friends go here to party

The main attraction in Vang Vieng is the "Tubing". You rent an inner tube from a tractor wheel, get in a TukTuk and they will drop you off a few kilometers up the river. You get out, grab your tube (if you are there for the first time), get a lot of welcome drinks, and have people working in the different restaurant in the city (all westerners) write different promotions on you body that will give you discounts later in the day. The place you are dropped off at is located right on the green, somewhat rapid river, with high mountains rising up on the other side. The place is called "Bar 1". You look at the water, then at the people swinging back and fourth about 10 meters above your head, then you make a funny face as you wonder weather or not the person who was previously flying above you will be in one piece and still breathing when he or she comes floating up to the surface a little further down the river. By the time you have realized that this person is fine, another is in the air, and you are down in front of the bar, dancing with large numbers of people, realizing you have met a few of these before. Either in Vietnam or back home in Norway. You have dropped off the tube in the pile that was there when you arrived. Your money is in a waterproof sleeve, maybe with some other necessities, such as a camera, some makeup (if you are a girl, Swedish, or a LadyBoy).
You soon realize that all the people that have been tubing before are now tubing without a tube. The river, that you now have gotten time to cool down in, is a side river to the Mekong river, and it allows you to float on your tube for about four kilometers if you so desire, but it turns out that you really just need to float down the first 150 meters before it is time to head home. The three first bars are aligned up, one after the other, just like the free whisky shots they put up to your face as soon as you have climbed the slippery bamboo ladder that takes you out of the water. This is where everything is happening, so most people drop the tube, and only swim between these three bars. There are more than enough swings, flying foxes, and loud speakers to spend all your time among Bar 1, Bar 2 and Bar 3. My first and only experience with the flying fox was a lot of fun, but it turned out quite different than I had expected it to. A "flying fox" is a tight line, with a handle on it, so you slide down the line, and then 'jump' in the water. As you go down you can see the end of the line, and you know that the handle won't go any further. You also know that you will. So like most people try to, you can let go right before the end. But just like I did, and plenty others, you underestimate the speed, (which looks a lot lower from the bar 5 meters below, or maybe feels faster 7 meters above the water.) and pick the wrong point of where you believe the airy trip ends. Whatever the reason, you will get thrown up in the air, doing a large scale back flip. People watching said that I had the greatest one of them all. I kept my body straight, my arms were stretched out on both sides, I did a perfect rotation and landed feet first in the water. I did not know what had happened, but I felt good, and it turned out everyone believed I did it on purpose. Maybe you will not be that lucky. I saw several almost passing out after a rough encounter with the surface.
All over town there are people walking on crouches, daily people get injured, and in most cases they have only themselves to thank. You need to know your limits with the alcohol.
On Bar 3, our first day tubing, we saw some LadyBoys, and from a distance there was no evidence that they were men. The only thing that will show is their big feet and hands. They have had so much surgery that even the Adam's apple is filed down. And you can also tell by the big t*** and perfect teeth. That is not at all common in Asia. The LadyBoys demand a lot of attention, and every time they come close it is a good idea to hold on to your valuables. At first encounter with this, to me, strange phenomena you might think that they all do it because they are transsexuals, but when you hear the stories some guesthouse owners have to tell about them, you get a very different view on these people, males, or females, whatever I should call them. From an early age they get fed with hormones by their parents. The young boys are sent to schools to learn how to act like a woman. As they get older (over 15 years old) they start working in bars and for different kinds of pimps. They make good money, and get the surgeries their parents could not afford. (The hormones may often be financed by the same pimps). The LadyBoys are in most cases (I guess there are a few exceptions) a product of their parents' poverty. LadyBoys have secure work in the tourist business, and it provides them with very good salaries compared to what they could have managed on their own. LadyBoys are known for stealing your money, watches, cameras, or anything else of value. They trick you at games in the bar, and they also provide "sexual services" to drunken travelers, both men and women. We did pose for a picture with one of them, but always stayed as far away from them as possible. That pose was the strangest thing you can imagine. You know that it is a man, but you are holding his large female breasts. We did it for the documentation of this part of Asian culture, but walked away whenever we saw them later. There were only a few in Vang Vieng, but from what we hear, there are far more of them in Thailand.

As you travel along the river, there are bars everywhere, but what make this place bearable are the locals who walk in the shallow parts of the river, trying to catch fish in nets they throw and then pull in again. They walk around looking for the fish, not even blinking at the loud music and drunken tubers coming down the river. This men are actually fishing for their dinner, and that made me feel totally out of place, and realizing how bad for the locals who do not participate in the tourist business. In one generation they will all be gone in Vang Vieng, but in the rest of the world there will be more and more pearls of paradise destroyed by the massive tourism circus in the years to come.
The next attraction along the river is the Mud Volleyball. It is a mud pit topped with water, and there is no way you will be able to not fall. It is a lot of fun, and I was playing with some Kiwis, some Aussies, and a Norwegian girl from Molde. She was the craziest one, and how she did not break any bones I have no idea! When you get in the river again, you can go on some big slides that shoot you out in the air about 4 meters above the water. When passing the slides we just got in a TukTuk and headed home to have dinner and freshen up for the parties going till 3 AM. There was not much local food to dig up, but a lot of good Italian and barbecue. The "Oh la la Vang Vieng Pizza" was really good, and it served us well for dinner two days in a row, and it went perfectly down with the Beer Tower.
At night there were also free drinks, and a lot of bad music. But clubbing outdoors was really nice, and when you get tired you can go lie down in the hammocks around the dance floor. Everywhere is in walking distance, and crossing the river on beautiful bamboo bridges in the light of the stars (and blinking light from the bars and restaurants) was really nice. After the pollution (both in the air and the light pollution) in the big cities have made it hard to see the stars on most of my destinations, but the stars are beautiful in this part of the world. It is still the northern hemisphere, but the stars do look different than back home, the constellations appear in a different angle.
The stories are many, many should be forgotten, and despite having three days with a lot of fun there, my whole body was longing to get back on the road, and see more of the real Asia.