The day after I arrived at my guest house in Vang Vieng, a note appeared on my door saying the room was required for a long-standing booking in 6 days. At the time, I thought the manager was giving rather more notice than I would have expected. After 6 days here, I now understand. The town exists to keep Westerners drunk or high for as long as possible while providing a myriad of opportunities for them to seriously hurt themselves. Wobbly bridges, complete with live electricity cables as hand rails, take you across the river to the best and most raucous bars; "Tubing" hurls you off huge slides and zip wires into the river; huge kilometre-long caves are available to swim in with little or no instruction. The local crutch-maker does a roaring trade for falang with twisted ankles and bruises like dinner plates.
But it's great, and easy to meet people while you're sitting quietly by the river and then spend the next 5 days together, totally inseparable. Nothing Lao about this in any way, but a proper traveller's experience. Next stop Luang Prabang.
1 comment:
Hello Fred
It took a while to get into your blog but a kind lady in the library managed it for me. Sounds like you are having a great time- sounds a bit perilious at times. Dont think Ive spelt that correctly. Off to Belfast on Tuesday for a week. Love reading about your adventures - the blog was a great idea. Take care - love Barbara X
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