Tubing the Namsong in Vang Vieng

The sole reason that many tourists and backpackers on the Southeast Asia circuit stop through Laos is to partake in the infamous river tubing in Vang Vieng. The town itself seems to have sprung up overnight: plywood guesthouses and restaurants with hand painted signs populate the town proper, while across a short bridge there is quiet literally a small island covered from shore to shore in bars. Most people only come to this town to party, and the lack of integrity in most things is a direct result of this. Either way, the town is nothing to write home about, but the tubing is a different story!

The Namsong River flows just a few meters west of town, and about four kilometers north of town is where the tubing begins: the river is lined with bars equipped with ski handle rope swings, zip lines, slides, mud volleyball, beer pong tables… you name it, Namsong has it. Tourists rent tire inner-tubes from a place in town and catch a tuk tuk ride up to the top of the bars and slowly make their way down. We had a slight problem when it came to renting the tubes: the ATM machines hadn’t been working in town, and we didn’t have enough cash to rent two tubes, put down the deposit for both, catch a tuk tuk, and spend the day drinking. So we came up with our own alternative plan. We bought cheap blow up tubes from a kayak shop for a quarter of the price! The best part was we didn’t have a “curfew”: rented tubes had to be back by six sharp or the deposit quickly becomes nonrefundable.

We set off on the river at about 10, with the intention of floating down once and taking in all the bars before actually hitting them on our second run. We had a blast not stopping! When we got to the end point, a handful of little Lao kids wanted rides on our tubes for the last bit and then offered to take our tubes back (a scam) and when we said no they asked for money, which we also said no to!

The second round of floating was absolute madness. Within the two hours we had been gone, hundreds of people had shown up and everyone was already wasted! We started drinking and before you knew it we were swinging over the river and having a blast. There were beers and buckets galore, and I’m pretty sure it would be impossible not to have the time of your life. We had heard a few horror stories about people getting injured trying to pull stupid stunts, but all six of us made it in one piece and those who rented even got their deposits back! We met up with our Irish buddies as well who proved to be incredibly entertaining drunks, and the entire day was filled with laughter. There really isn’t a better way to describe it: everyone was laughing all day, and that is always the sign of a great adventure!