it's tubin' time!!

It's tubiin', it's tubin' time! (with apologies to Flight of the Conchords for mangling their song)

So, I spent the last week in Vang Vieng, Laos. Yes, a whole week. As a fellow traveler so eloquently put it, "Vang Vieng is a black hole" - it's a very chill, fun place, so it's easy to wake up and realize a whole week has gone by! It's easy to while away your time at the Friends or Family Guy bars (bars that constantly air those respective shows, and there are a great deal of awesome day trips (trekking, mountain biking, caving, rock climbing), but Vang Vieng's real claim to fame is tubing.

All you do is buy a small waterproof pouch to stash your camera and money in, then go to what the Lonely Planet refers to as "the tubing Cartel." There you hand them about $12 ($7 of which is a returnable deposit), and they give you a tube, and drive you to the start. Basically, there's a 4 kilometer stretch of river, dotted by bars. Whenever you get tired of your current bar, you just hop in your tube, and float on until you see the next one that looks good, and they'll throw you a line and drag you in. (I actually had one guy who managed to throw a small inner-tube perfectly around my neck - that would have earned him an obscenely large stuffed animal at a Carnival Midway - I was definitely impressed).

In order to try and get you to go to their specific bar, each bar has something special to offer - one offered free bananas, another free french fries. And a lot of them also have crazy rope swings, ziplines, and even water slides! So, basically the entire river is a combination bar/waterpark. Awesome. It's definitely a great way to while away an afternoon or two (or in my case, 4).

As always, pictures do a better job describing things than I do: check 'em out!

grabbing a beer with some new friends at one of the bars

time for a change of scenery! Floating to a new bar

hangin' out (hah! pun!) on one of the many rope swings

one of the bars offered spray-painting. This resulted in my back having some weird purple streaks on it for about 4 days. Fantastic

even praying mantis' want to join the party!

artsy tubing shot

group shot (pun intended) at one of the bars

who's crazy enough to backflip off the rope swing? This guy!! (note that it looks a bit ugly in the photo, but I landed the backflip successfully)

mud volleyball? That's  great idea! At least until laundry time

just a little bit muddy after the volleyball match devolved into an all-out mud fight

tubing-eye-view of the sunset. Not that this was exactly a good thing, as it resulted in me having to navigate my way home in the dark. Luckily I still managed to see the exit point, and didn't end up in Cambodia