Floating Down Frat Row

Vang Vieng, Laos - I had been warned about Vang Vieng in all the guide books.  It is the hedonistic paradise of the backpacking crowd.  The main activity in Vang Vieng is river tubing where you go down the Nam Song river and get pulled up to river bars along the way to drink Lao beer and jump from rope swings.  Finding ourselves unable to make it to the Gibbon Experience (trekking and ziplining in the jungles), we decided to fuck it and go revel on the world's only floating frat row.  

Tourist and locals co-habitate on two parallel planes.  They share the same streets and weather the same sun but that is about it.  As a tourist, you have no concept of  time other than feeding, sleeping and checking out.  You have a completely different set of needs. For example, how many times while on vacation have you inadvertently planned an activity only to discover the place is closed because it is Sunday?  Now how many times have you made the same mistake at home? Because you are conscience of the day of the week and the operation time of businesses when you're home.  We take pictures of people going about their daily lives because it is new and interesting.  We pay exorbitant amounts to see what locals see every day.  The two planes rarely meet and when they do, it's only in the tourism industry where by now, all the locals speak passable English.  

Never has my two plane theory been so evident as in Vang Vieng. Backpackers arrive in long distance buses from Vientiene or Luang Prabang and descend on the small river village that is the love child of Animal House and Woodstock. They cram themselves into guesthouses and ride down the Nam Song in river tubes upwards of 3 times a day.  Along the 5 km journey, they get pulled into riverside bars to drink, jump off the rope swings and play muddy games of "volleyball".  By the end of the day, everyone is sloshed, wet, muddy and ready to go at it again the next day. In full disclosure, I loved it and recall drunkenly declaring an extension of stay to go tubing again. The ride was exhilarating, the bars are fun and the view was beautiful.  

It was however, glaringly obvious the distance between local life in Vang Vieng and the playground created for the backpackers.  Just as quickly as we descended, we packed ourselves back on buses and in less than 2 minutes, our floating playground has transformed into the village life of local Lao farmers going about their day.  It was almost like for about 3 miles and 24 hours, a parallel universe opened up, we reveled, and left in the morning with monstrous headaches and list of new facebook friends with whom to share pictures later on.