I’m almost past partying age so we nearly skipped Vang Vieng. In the end we came to kill some time on the way to Kasi. I’m glad we came as I did enjoy the town, but it’s a funny place; it has the feel of an old wild western town, where the action has left it.
The craziest party days are over in Vang Vieng after a number of deaths caused by recklessness down by the river. Despite that, I still expected Vang Vieng to be hosting a number of drunken groups, but everyone was pretty well behaved.
I must admit I was judging the tubing. I’m too old to visit a place just to get trashed and I was rolling my eyes at those Westerners who chose to descend upon a small Laos town with their loud, crazy behaviour. Those poor Laos people, I thought. They don’t want to be interrupted by us downing buckets and storming through their streets…
I was wrong.
Once in the town I saw the drinks offers, the drug topped pizzas and encouragement everywhere to get wasted. I thought of the young party-goers really easily influenced by peers or persuasion and it made me desperately sad that backpackers were gleefully running off for some tubing, unaware of how dangerous it can get, whilst fuelling tourism for this town that were enjoying the surge of money and tourist boom.
As you tube down the river, bar staff will throw out plastic bottles tied to ropes, to drag you in to the bars. If there are bars, people will drink. If there are swings, drunken people will swing. If people are swinging in to the water, others will think it’s okay to jump.
And then will smash their heads on hidden rocks and die. 27 backpackers died in just one year because injuries such as this.
In Europe, if an area is dangerous there will be signs everywhere telling you. “SLIPPERY!”, “DANGER, DEEP WATER!” etc. No signs means no danger and there are certainly no signs on the river in Vang Vieng warning you of the huge rocks just under the surface. It made me so sad that young people from Westernised countries have been tempted to their deaths in these circumstances. I mean, if there are rocks under the water, do not put a swing there! If you do, people will think it is okay to jump in.
The reality of Vang Vieng at the moment is that tubing doesn’t exist as it used to. If you go down the river these days you’ll see it is more of a leisurely couple of hours sipping a beer than the all-out frenzy it once was. It gave me the creeps; a deserted stretch responsible for the deaths of many youngsters and although the tourist businesses in the town has taken a hit because of it, I can’t help but think there are many more locals who will be glad.
As mentioned above, I was ready to blame the tourists for this situation but found a very different story when I got to this once-crazy but now-dead tourist town.
