The Short Life of a Strange Place

It's taken me a while to get around to writing this; some may call it writer's block, but I'd say it is at least 75% laziness! Also, it's pretty shocking for someone that graduated with a degree in Journalism in the 21st Century to not be writing a blog. So I'm here to right this terrible wrong.

I think I needed a topic that really struck a cord with me to get started, and thanks to my friend Vicki I found it. I was sent a link to an article online about the police closure of a place called Vang Vieng. I guess that very few of you reading this would know what VV is, but I'd like you to hazard a guess before you continue reading. No, it's not a secret Guatamalen prison (too political for me) or an East London butchers selling rat meat (topical), it is a small town in a country on the other side of the planet that is infamous in the travelling world as the home of 'tubing'.

Vang Vieng is (was) a small community on the Nam Song river in the north of Laos - an incredibly poor, but equally incredibly beautiful country in South East Asia, sandwiched between Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The farming families that made up the community began using tractor tyre inner tubes as something for the slowly increasing number of tourists to use to float downriver and serenely gaze up at the astonishingly gorgeous karst mountains that seem to sprout vertically to the sky. A breathtaking place.

Soon, as predictably happens, thousands of tourists began finding their way to VV, and before you could say Beer Lao hostels, bars and restaurants began springing up all over the place, turning it into a tourist hotspot, punctuated by vomiting teenagers, coloured in luminous paint, stoned off their tits wandering to the next bar. It really was a magical place.

The original idea of being driven upriver in the back of a tuk-tuk, carrying a tractor's inner tube, and getting dropped off a mile out of town, so that you could float downstream, and stop off at a few makeshift bars on the shore for a Beer Lao or Mekong whiskey, had been overtaken by the attraction of Vang Vieng as a party town.

The lax attitude to laws meant that booze was free flowing, buckets (anyone who has been to Thailand nods in appreciation) were prevalent and drugs were widely available from the bars and restaurants along the dusty main road. You literally could open a menu and order a milkshake, pepperoni pizza and some opium to smoke, or some magic mushrooms for dessert. And then lay back and watch the endless re-runs of Friends episodes playing all day and all night.

I speak from experience, having visited Laos in 2008 (was it really that long ago?!) as part of a longer trip with my close friend Pedro -  whose name has been changed to protect his identity. I say experience, I mean I saw what was going on and only ever drank alcohol. Honest.

You got up in the morning, ate some brekkie and necked a beer to shake off the hangover, before paying a deposit for the tube and heading up the river. You start at one bar and essentially booze your way back to town, occasionally having a break from drinking in bars on either side of the fast-flowing river, by floating downstream, sat in the tube, with a joint or a beer in hand. Then continuing the liver-punishment by hitting the bars and wooden-shack bars until the sun comes up.

It really was great fun for a few days. One particular day we went tubing, and after a few hours partying (must only have been midnight) I, for reasons still unknown, wandered away from the party, without my beloved red Crocs, and somehow fell down a steep, nettled riverbank, along a deserted path. I was rescued at some point by three lovely Mexican backpackers, who like all Good Samaritans kindly took me back to their hut and fed me joint after joint, until I was able to stand and make my way home in the morning.

That was the end for me; after four days partying my arse off, I was spent. I wanted to see more of the real Laos and my body had reached its narcotic zenith. Pedro stayed for a few more days (and actually returned for some months a few years ago - fair play), and I retreated to the temple town of Luang Prabang, for some much needed R&R. 

But it was amazing to see, how something that was only really started less than ten years ago, with great intentions, and of people 'living the dream', turned into a messy tourist trap and was closed down by the Lao police. But fear not, somewhere else will spring up this summer. And I, for one, will be far away. Unfortunately.