Tubing in the town of Vang Vieng is a rite of passage for backpackers in Laos and is an industry that has almost single-handedly transformed the small village into a booming tourist hot-spot packed with guesthouses, internet cafes, and restaurants. Normally the overly-commercialized locale would bother us, but the people were just friendly enough and the food and accommodations were just cheap enough to render Vang Vieng convenient rather than annoying.
As for the tubing itself, there is not much to it beyond renting a tube from one of the shops, getting dropped off upstream from the town, and floating along the Nam Song river stopping in as many bars as you please along the way. It can get quite raucous, but between the boozing, dancing, rope swinging into the river, and other rambunctiousness, it's nice to take a moment to look at your surroundings and realize that you're floating down a river with gorgeous limestone cliffs around you and a blue sky above. Since we started the ride a bit earlier than most people, we spent the last
hour or so serenely floating by ourselves on the river and taking in the scenery.
Besides hitting up a few bars, we also took time to explore a nearby cave. The way to the cave was a slippery climb up the mountain and then an even more slippery descent into the cave mouth so it's advisable to see it prior to partaking in heavy alcohol consumption. Here are the shots from our day:
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| The Scenery At Vang Vieng |
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| Rach With the Tube |
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| Avishai In the Water | |
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| Hanging At the Bar |
Climbing Up To the Cave
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| The OG of Vang Vieng Tubing Bars |
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| Delicious Veggie BBQ Skewers |
And here's some creativity inspired by Beerlao:
Climbing Up To the Cave
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