Back to Indochina: Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng is quite possibly the backpacker capital of the world - and in my opinion it is rather unfortunate that such a spectacularly beautiful place has been hi-jacked by rowdy bands of 18 year olds. Not that I'm against a bit of fun, but the drawbacks of that being the main tourist demographic has some nasty consequences.

The backpackers turn up in droves to go tubing down the Na Song. This is not our photo, it seemed foolish in the extreme to bring our camera kit on a six hour booze cruise.

Yes, that is a giant slide, and yes people have died on it. We did go tubing one afternoon and certainly had a bit of fun. Once was enough.

The idea is that you get a tube and float down the river stopping off at various bars along the way and risking your life on various rope swings, slides and zip wires. So what was once a beautiful stretch of pristine river and wilderness is now besotted with ear-splittingly loud music and litter. I repeatedly saw kids putting out cigarettes and dispensing beer bottles into the river - which quite frankly I find unforgivable. Make no mistake these are, without exception, middle-class Western kids who are all on a gap year or their winter break. They know better and I suspect the vast majority of them would never do that at home.

Unfortunately the bad behaviour is not confined to the river.  Dress in Laos is generally conservative, the locals do not particularly appreciate girls in skimpy bikinis and shirtless 'bros' strolling around town.

The lack of confidence in their own cuisine, coupled with the catering to 18 year-old white kids leads to a pretty dire food scene. Every restaurant tries to do every cuisine and they don't do any of it well. We did manage to get our hands on some nice bbq river fish and find some decent soup stalls - but I was overwhelmingly underwhelmed. At least cold beer was readily available.

My last gripe before I get to the good stuff - the TV bars. The town is packed with bars showing infinite re-runs of Family Guy and Friends. It's depressing. I mean who travels halfway around the world to watch re-runs of Friends? Hungover teenagers apparently.

It would be easy to think that this was all there was to do in Vang Vieng and that there is no escape from the hordes of teenagers, but respite is remarkably easy to come by. In fact, all you have to do is go across the bridge.

The other side is like stepping back in time, there are small villages and rice paddy fields tucked in amongst the stunning limestone karsts. We rented a small motorbike and spent perhaps the best day of our entire trip winding down dirt tracks taking in the scenery, checking out a few caves and even stopping for a swim at the blue lagoon. The further out you get the fewer the people, in fact we shared the road more often with large (slightly intimidating) herds of water buffalo than people.

Even returning in the evening, it's fairly easy to escape the crowds. Vang Vieng is so saturated with food and accommodation outlets that it would virtually be impossible for every place to be busy at any given time. So after a solid day of exploring (and with remarkably sore posteriors from bouncing up and down on a cheap Chinese motorbike all day) a cold beer in a quiet bar as you watch the sunset over the Nam Song makes for a pretty good ending.

All in all, it was a pleasant few days, very well spent that more than justified the 4+ hours bus journey to go the 96 miles from Vientiane. This is by the way, the best road in the entire country and aside from only being two lanes the entire way and winding through the mountains, I would estimate that - at best - only 2/3rds are paved.

Travel sickness medication highly advised.