The above phrase is written on the tank tops adorning the drunken bodies of almost every Westerner found on the streets of Vang Vieng. The word "TUBING" is surrounded by a drawing of a black tube. We believe it's supposed to read "TUBING in the Vang Vieng" which would lead one to suppose the Vang Vieng is a river when in fact it is a town. The Mekong is the river that flows through the town and in which one can tube.
The major attraction of Vang Vieng, where we stayed for 5 or so days about a week ago, is tubing down the Mekong River. We have been tubing before several times back in the States and were looking forward to a day of floating down a river and escaping the intense heat. As most of you know who have been tubing with Amir and I, the act of floating down a river unquestionably involves beer or booze or both. Tubing in Vang Vieng is certainly no exception.
There are only two places to rent tubes in Vang Vieng and both of them have the same pricing structure so we picked the one that looked like it was ready to leave soonest to the river. There was another couple that walked up at the same time as we did and we ended up sharing a tuk tuk with them and our 4 tubes to the start of the tubing at a place in the river about 3 ½ km north of town.
Amy was the girl’s name and she was British. Her boyfriend’s name was Troy and he was an American living and working in Malaysia as a diving instructor. They had met 5 months earlier and had been dating ever since. We separated from them at the launching place where they stopped off at Bar 1, the first bar of many along the river, and we got into our tubes and started floating.
Tubing in the Vang Vieng is like no other tubing in the world. Once you get into the river on your tube, you are incapable of floating farther than 20 feet before a guy standing on a little makeshift dock below the next bar throws a water bottle weighted rope at you to try to pull you into his bar for drinks. Since there are about 12 bars lining both sides of the river and most people stop at 6 or 8 of them and have a bucket drink, it is no wonder that several people die each year on the river.
Let me explain that dying comment. Drinking and tubing is usually not a particularly dangerous combination when engaged in on a river that is as mellow as the Mekong is in Vang Vieng. However, when you add into that mix rope swings, zip lines and slides that are all between 5 and 15 feet above the water at their low points, you can imagine why the tubing might get more dangerous. Some fools decide to mix “happy brownies” with their bucket drinks and then go off the swings, zip lines and slides.
We stuck to BYO booze and a few bucket drinks. Amy and Troy met up with us a few bars down the river and we continued our conversation. Amy is a paramedic who is finishing up a long trip through Europe on a group tour and subsequent visit to Malaysia and various other Southeast Asian countries. She met Troy while scuba diving in Malaysia. Amy was scheduled to return to England in a week’s time to try and find a paramedic position in Brighton. Troy was in the mortgage/lending scene back in the States for about 4 years before he decided to chuck it all, sell everything and teach scuba diving in Ecuador. Somehow he made his way to Malaysia and is considering opening up his own dive shop somewhere (not Malaysia because of the crazily strict Muslim laws governing entrepreneurship).
Amir and I had seen a sign at a bar farther down the river advertising mud volleyball. Amy and Troy were game to meet up with us there so we floated in that direction and allowed ourselves to be pulled in to the docking station. A sign prominently displayed at the entrance to the bar strongly suggested the purchase of alcoholic beverages prior to engaging in use of the bar’s beautiful mud pit volleyball court. We obliged willingly and consumed the better part of a bucket drink with Lao whiskey and cola before Amy and Troy arrived ready to rumble on the court.
The volleyball court was literally a pit of mud, watery down to the first foot or two and squishy mud beyond. A volleyball floated in one corner of the mud and Amir picked it up and cleaned it off in some more mud. We took up positions on opposite sides of the court, Amir and I vs. Amy and Troy. The first serve flew over the net and landed with a giant splash in the mud next to Amy.
Amy picked up the ball, rinsed it in the mud and served it back over the net where it landed in the mud next to me. We repeated this a few more times before any of us managed to return a serve because, as it turns out, none of us could move much in the mud without risking complete submersion in the slippery substance.
I think it took about 45 seconds before one of us went under and came up spluttering mud. That’s all it took for the game to really get going. The game itself was less pure volleyball and more of a volleyball and mud flinging hybrid sport that the world will no doubt turn into an Olympic event before 2012.
Another couple showed up by the side of the pit itching to get themselves involved in the melee. We waved them on in and continued flinging mud at each other and occasionally getting a lame volley going over the net. Eventually, thirst prevailed and we hauled ourselves out of the mud pit to polish off our bucket drinks.
That’s when we noticed the tug-of-war mud pit on the other side of the bar. The other couple having left by then, Amy and Troy vs. Amir and I match 1 began only moments later. We seemed like fairly evenly matched teams but I secretly felt that Amir and I would no doubt have the advantage after our 3+ months back home of our rigorous P90X workout regime. Not so, apparently. We all gave a mighty heave ho and then Amir and I went flying through the air into the watery mud. Fortunately, it was more water than mud and we sustained minimal bruising.
Thinking that must have been some kind of fluke, we engaged in matches 2 and 3 to the same effect before some other guys showed up wanting in on the game and Amir decided to desert me in favor of the Amy/Troy team. The guys were fairly buff looking and I figured my chances had significantly improved. So imagine my surprise upon finding myself covered in mud yet again only moments into match 4. By that point in time, we realized that the other team had some kind of unfair advantage in the lay of the land on the opposite side of the mud pit. It probably also didn’t help that our dripping wet bodies had created a smaller mud pit in the area we stood pulling and heaving ho.
Not deterred even by that realization, we gave match 5 our all and ended up victorious for the first and only time. Unbeknownst to me, the puller on the rope located closest to the edge of the mud pit, the guy to the rear of our rope had worked his way over to a nearby tree and wrapped himself around the tree and then lay down with the rope. All it took then was a final heave from myself and the other guy to get Amy, Troy and Amir into the muck.
At the end of our mud adventures, we had some new scrapes and bruises and our entire bodies were brown with nature’s own version of a fake tan. We all jumped into the river to attempt to remove the mud. Lao mud is very tenacious, though, and a good thing, too. At the end of a full day in the sun, we ended up with not even the slightest hint of burn all thanks to that fine coating of mud. The mud pit bar was certainly one of the day’s highlights and it was with great fondness that we bade it farewell when we left in search of yet another bar.
By the end of the strip of bars, we had formed a solid traveling friendship with Amy and Troy. How could we not after having shared several mud baths? All of that changed, however, when we made it to the end of the river and climbed out with our tubes. We hadn’t quite made it to the pickup point 2km further down the river where we were supposed to have been by 6pm. It was a few minutes before 6pm and we thought if we got out of the water now we had a better chance of finding a tuk tuk to get us back to the tube rental place and saving ourselves the late fee than if we kept floating down the river in the gathering darkness.
As it turns out, that wasn’t a particularly great plan and there wasn’t a goddamned tuk tuk to be seen. We did see a lone Lao guy on a motorbike and Amy took advantage of her status as owner of a pair of breasts and convinced the guy to give her (and her only) a ride into town. She left us all stranded with our tubes walking slowly back toward town. I think at that moment, Troy began to seriously wonder about his and Amy’s compatibility. He asked Amir whether he would have been cool if I did that and Amir said, “Hell no. She would never do that or we wouldn’t have much of a marriage.” Amir and I had our own doubts about Amy’s reliability as a travel friend but Troy stayed in our good graces to the end.
A tuk tuk driver did find us eventually and we were able to get a ride back to town for 10,000 kip each. We dropped off our tubes and a late fee of 20,000 kip each and found Amy sitting with a big Chang beer in her hands by the side of the tube rental place. Troy took one look at her and the beer and said, “You better hand me that beer right now.”
Amy passed him the beer and he drank some. That seemed to be enough of an olive branch for Troy and the two of them walked away toward their hotel after we worked out a plan to meet for drinks in a half hour. When we did meet up with them, it took about 10 minutes and a single beer for Amy to pass out in Troy's lap. Some people hold their bucket drinks better than others, I suppose. Anyway, that was the end of our beautiful, albeit short lived, friendship with Troy and Amy as Troy had to drag Amy back to their guest house and they were leaving early the next day.
All in all, a fantastic day of in the tubing Vang Vieng and one we will remember (most of, anyway) for years to come.
