Jaunted

The next day, tired and groggy, we embarked on the “rite of passage,” as Lonely Planet instructed us—tubing downriver. The town so far seemed rather tame, compared to the stories of debauchery we had heard. When we arrived in our sangtheaw truck to the drop-off point along the river, we saw what the town was all about.

Hundreds of kids were crowded into a wooden bar with a makeshift platform hanging over the river. This is backpacking in Laos as MTV would have intended it and may even be the place where the producers of Road Rules decided that combining travel with nakedness, drunkenness, and near-death stunts was a good idea. People chase shots of cheap vodka with bottles of Laos whiskey, before sliding down ziplines perches over the river and bobbing back and forth like pendulums from 20-foot-high swings, before dropping into the surging, rainy season river.

Committed to always being Roman in Rome, I took a swing, and dropped at the perfectly wrong angle so that water shot up my nose, and the entire length of my body felt like it hit pavement. Riverside bars dotted the banks as we drifted downstream on our tubes, and we occasionally stopped in to visit. At one, the bartender offered magic mushroom milkshakes and hash in addition to peanuts and beer. We declined and floated on.

If you ignore the tacky hairstyles and the throbbing base of bad hip hop, you start to notice that the scenery along the way is spectacular. The mountains in the distance are sharp and green. This is why it became a destination in the first place, and we can’t begrudge a town for the people who decide to frequent it.

The next day we left town, me with a full-body bruise and a nasal infection, and my two companions miserably hung-over. We had spotted a guy the day earlier with this painted on his back: “267 trips downriver.” Ignoring the expense and repetitiveness of this pointless quest, we may not have survived more than one trip downstream.

Clearly, this NY Times piece about Veng Vieng cleaning up its act involved no first-person research.

Stay tuned tomorrow as Claire finally gets some peace and relaxation in Vientiane.

Related Stories:
· Buffalo Slim Jims and Waterfall Swims In Laos [Jaunted]
· Heading To Laos To Discover The Best of Indochina [Jaunted]
· Laos Field Trip [Jaunted]