Tubin' the river

Vang Vieng went from a quiet little town on the river to an epic backpacker party spot with the creation of a tube float down the river. It escalated quickly with the addition of many bars that floaters could stop at. Combine this with decently shallow water, wide availability of drugs including opiates, and drunk-decision making. It got so crazy that there were multiple tourist deaths each month, and the government stepped in and shut it all down. 

Our only float picture. Water, drinking and cell phones don't mix.

Happy birthday again Becca!

A few years later, Vang Vieng has a much more chill feeling that I imagine it did a few years ago, but it has definitely not been abandoned by the backpacker crowd. The tubing business (which appears to be incredibly lucrative as far as I can tell) is alive and well. For those familiar with Salt River Tubing in Phoenix, picture this without the marshmallows, big mattresses and boom boxes, or nasty water. Instead of drinking while you float, you float between bars. 

At the beginning of the float, there's a bar giving out free shots and facilitating games of beer pong and flip cup. On a side note, I 'met' this guy named Tommy several times during my time in Vang Vieng. It appears that he's paid to drink and recruit people to come visit the bars he works for. Once he introduced himself to us and we said 'hi Tommy!' He was both surprised and a little creeped out we knew his name already. Until we explained when we had previously met him.

Anyways, after participating in a game of flip cup, the losers were subjected to something I had never seen before. They lay down on their backs with their mouths open and full of beer. Then someone came along and blew air in their nose so that beer and air came spraying out their mouth. 

The subsequent bars were also a lot of fun. We timed the tubing with my friends birthday. We met another birthday boy and had a great time dancing around to Macklemore at one bar. At another we ran into a bunch of Americans I met in Dalat, Vietnam and played in a big mud pit. The world's really not so big.

For Becca's birthday, she decided she wanted to splurge and get a nice hotel room on the river. After drinking and playing in mud, we got to go back to a massive hotel room with our own sparkling clean bathroom. Icing on the cake.