A Tale of Two Cities with Only One Name- Vang Viene

Almost all the restaurants have the same menu here. Strange travelers with marker and paint on their bodies crawl out of bed at 12:00pm and party until the sun comes up.  Every restaurant has a constant loop of Friends on starting at 8:00am and going until 11:00pm.  There is the Nam Song river on the edge of town with a large island that we were told houses the stranger late night bars. Two nights ago before we were going to bed, we decided to take a walk to the island and people watch.  What we found was a quiet, dark, lord of the fly looking scene, complete with run down bamboo huts and unoccupied hammocks. Local legend tells that over a month ago, the police shut the island down.  A local man made an off hand comment about the island bar owners not delivering the necessary bribe to the local sheriffs, but who knows.  In Laos, they have a state wide 12:00am curfew. This means at 11:30pm all bars, all restaurants, all everywhere shuts down, closes shop and quietly goes home before midnight.  Luang Prabang followed this rule and we noticed at 11:30pm one night walking home, that the rest of the town and streets were empty. Vang Viene is a little different. It is (for lack of a better metaphor) perpetually on spring break. The island bars had a tradition of routinely staying loud and rowdy until 4:00am, so we were surprised to find this quiet, spooky little island.

We started yesterday by taking a 1 hr taxi ride to a cave called the water cave. It is called the water cave because it is only accessible by tubing. We wore waterproof headlamps and used a series of ropes to pull our tube through the 2 km cave. It was pretty cool.  We then visited a temple cave with a Buddha image and rock formations shaped like elephants (they call it Elephant Cave). Then we kayaked down the quiet Nam Song river until we heard some strange sounds.... What is that sound coming from down river?... As we got closer the muffled sounds of Axel Rose was coming clear. Is that Gun's & Roses?...Paradise City blasted us as we came upon a giant, daily, college like spring break party.

Every day at around noon, hundreds of hungover (younger) travelers rent tubes to float down the river. A taxi drives the tubers 5 km up river to start the tubing.  The locals have built these odd riverside bars complete with water slides, large rope swings, zip lines, and high jumps to entice the tubers to stop and have drinks and listen to dance club music. While drinking at these bars it is customary to write on each other with Magic Marker and cover each other in fluorescent body paint.  Watching this, myself and my wife, came to a increasingly familiar conclusion... We are Old.  Neither of us wanted to be covered in body paint or magic marker.  Neither of us stepped up for a game of beer pong. I did, however, try the really big rope swing that swung 25 or so feet over the river.  After two Beer Lao (22oz for $1.25 and still delicious) we jumped back into the kayak and paddled back to our hotel.  As we approached the town of Vang Viene, we were in a sea of 100 other tubers and kayakers. It was a fun day on the water, but instead of going to the rave bars and partying till the sun came up, Christina and I chose a quiet dinner and a comfortable bed. 

This town has such the strange dichotomy of natural beauty and debaucherous hedonism.  The caves, the surrounding mountains, the glorious sunsets, the picturesque river, is offset by the rave bars, Rachael and Ross, and crappy western food.  We decided last night we were ready to move on, so we booked our bus today to Ventiene for a couple of nights before flying to Cambodia. It is almost time for another stamp in the passport (that is Christina's Favorite thing).