Vang Vieng and Last Minute Changes

Vang Vieng is a town whose entire economy is based on tubing. Someone figured out that a steady stream of crazy foreigners were willing to pay to tube down the Nam Song River in old tractor tires and the town has not only capitalized on that idea, but has also turned a 3-4 km stretch of that river into a veritable amusement park. In terms of pure, unadulterated fun (with no thoughts to cultural learning), our one-day in Vang Vieng has definitely been the most fun on this trip, and it was not even planned.

Our group, which had dwindled to 5, arrived in Vang Vieng at approximately 2am a few days ago. The bus ride took almost 6 hours, through windy mountain roads. According to the guidebook, there is practically "not a stretch of straight road" from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng, and that was not an exaggeration. When we hit the mountains, they passed out plastic barf bags. You had to brace yourself in your seat to not fall right out of it on some of the sharp turns. It was dark and rainy, and the Vang Vieng bus station was in the middle of nowhere, and pretty much deserted when we got there. The last-second tubing detour seemed like a bad idea at that moment. We took a tuk-tuk to our guesthouse, where we had to bang on the door to wake someone up to show us to a room.

Things definitely looked a lot better in the morning, when we realized we had a beautiful view of the mountains behind us and the river right below. The morning mist that swirled around the mountain peaks made for a spectacular backdrop. After signing away our lives (people have died in the past), we hit the river. We all could not fathom why a 3-km tubing trip would take 4-6-hours until we noticed the zipline and swing stations set up by entrepreneurial residents in the town. At these stations, you pay to zipline into the river or swing or jump from high platforms into the water. Jumps without beer costs money. The purchase of beer allowed unlimited free jumps. No wonder people die. I was originally freaked out about falling out of the tube into the river since the currents were pretty strong and there are rapids and I can barely swim, but somehow, I was convinced to swing into the river at 2 different stations - twice each time. The first one was about 20 feet high, and both times, I slipped and fell in the water too early (not to mention the fact that there is no way to keep your bikini top on so I flashed the entire group the first time). At the swing in the "last stop" the swing was like a trapeze swing that was suspended about 30 feet above the water. It was scary jumping off the platform but so much fun afterwards. We must have spent about 2-3 hours at this one station alone. We almost missed our car to Vientiane since we kept on pushing back when we planned to return to the town. The boys I travelled with jumped about 10 times each. It was awesome and I even have pictures of me jumping to prove it!

Vientiane was like any other big Asian city and we did not spend any time there. We stayed the night and flew to Bangkok early the next morning to get our visas to Myanmar (completely last minute change of plans). We get our visas tomorrow and leave for Myanmar for 6 days on Friday. Am really excited. We spent last night watching Thai Boxing - the national passtime here, at Lumphini Boxing Stadium. It was seedy to say the least. Almost no females there except a few foreigners. We watched 3 matches. It was an interesting cultural experience - there's an elaborate pre-fight ritual, a live band (playing traditional Thai music), lots of betting on the games, and 5 rounds of fighting during each match. Kicking is allowed in Thai Boxing, which sets it apart from other forms of boxing. We went to Siam Center in the new part of Bangkok and watched Ratatouille. The Siam Paragon is a fancy mall, which one of the guys called the "trophy wife" mall. The theater is massive - it has ultrascreens (huge plush seats that cost way too much), a members-only enigma screen (with couches and cushions), and regular theaters that have love seats in the back.

We're going to Ayuthaya tomorrow. It's one of the ancient capital cities of Thailand. And then, off to Myanmar!