This morning I left Luang Prabang by bus for Vang Vieng. The 6 hour journey was very windy and the bus crawled at seemingly cycling speed for much of the time. I felt chucky as I had taken my motion-sickness pills a bit too late to be effective … and they may been past their use-by date.
I had to open the window and spew, spray-painting the side of the bus and (hopefully) to a lesser extent the woman on the scooter.
I spewed some more when the bus had a rest stop, upon seeing trays of semi-hatched eggs (called balut in the Philippines) as I hopped off. I simply couldn’t contain myself. Memories of my Form 1 science class practicals came flooding back. We laid out various stages of the development of the egg. From a blood stained egg-yolk to wet and blind chick (and every stage in between).
Vang Vieng is the adventure capital of Laos. The number one attraction is tubing down the river: sit on inflated tractor tubes going down the river and drink beer at pubs along the way, plus smoke “stuff” and fly across the river on flying foxes and let go half-way … all in an elevated mental state. Its like tubing meets pub crawl and Outward Bound School. Sounds like an accident waiting to happen.
Without doubt, recreational drugs in all shapes and forms are big in Vang Vieng (see picture above). There are more wholesome activities too, eg. cycling, rock-climbing those cliffy karst peaks.