'In the Tubing'

Like full moon parties in Ko Phangan, tubing in Vang Vieng is infamous on the South East Asia backpacker trail. It's virtually impossible to travel around without seeing someone wearing an 'In the Tubing' shirt or meeting someone who has recently been, so I knew that at some point I would have to pass through Vang Vieng to try it out myself! The tubing experience basically involves floating down the Nam Song river in an inflated tractor inner tyre, stopping to drink at riverside bars along the way. Over the years it has got very popular, and the town of Vang Vieng has grown into a backpacker hub with thousands of westerners passing through to party..... and occasionally go tubing.

I didn't really want to visit Vang Vieng on my own, as I thought I'd have more fun with a group of friends, and quite conveniently I made 4 new friends on the bus from Luang Prabang. Three of the girls were from New Zealand on holiday from Uni, and the fourth was a school teacher, Mariana, from Holland. One of the Kiwi girls had been to Vang Vieng before, so she guided us through the tubing process. She explained that most people don't actually go tubing they just drink at the river-side bars that are accessible by foot, so on our first day that's what we did!


We arrived at the river and were met by lots of drunken backpackers, dressed up, drinking buckets and launching themselves into river from rope swings. It was slightly hard-core for 2PM, but we soon got into the swing of things and had a fun afternoon playing beer pong, dancing to music, drinking free shots and the doing the occasional bucket-stand. When it got dark we made our way back into town and finished the evening in the 'bucket bar'.

The next day the Kiwis decided that they still didn't fancy tubing and were going swimming in a near-by lagoon. Mariana and I felt that we couldn't come to Vang Vieng and not tube (we'd bought the T-shirts!) So we left the girls to it, and headed down to the river with our big yellow tubes in tow.
I had been in contact with my friend from home, Sandra, and knew she was going to be in Vang Vieng for the day, but we hadn't been able to make specific plans to meet up. I was hoping we'd bump into each other in one of the riverside bars... and as luck would have it, we did! While floating down the river I spotted Sandra in a bar, so we signaled to a local guy on the shore that we wanted to stop and he threw us a rope and pulled us in. It was FANTASTIC to see Sandra again, and we spent the rest of the day leisurely floating down the river, drinking Beer Lao and stopping at various bars along the way.

After an awesome day on the river, it was time to say goodbye to Sandra for the second time this trip. It was only a short reunion this time, but I was so glad that we had managed to meet up in Vang Vieng and party together one more time in Asia!

I decided to leave Vang Vieng the next day, I'd had a lot of fun but I didn't want to get sucked into staying and partying for days on end, it was time to see a little more of real Laos.