Floating Down Whiskey River/VANG VIENG

Happy Shakes are not an opponent to be underestimated.  Sarah had ordered a "Medium" and was starting to tweak, whereas my "Strong" shake was flattening my consciousness into a narrow, dust-flecked tunnel of strained thought and uncertainty.  In an effort to stave off The Fear we made the rounds of a few Friends bars, but the more we watched of mid-series Central Perk and Ross and moistmakers, the more horrified I became.  The only solution seemed to be sleep, and dreams sure to be haunted by oddly-muscular David Schwimmer talking about being a director.  Nebbish pecs everywhere.  Awful.

On the way to the hotel I stop for a banana pancake, and Sarah goes into a nearby convenience store for something dumb like water or whatever.  Back in our room, Sarah realizes she left her brand new 64GB iPod Touch (with a great deal of vacation photos on it) back at the store.  Somehow I hadn't noticed her leaving it behind, for reasons that escape me.

Now I remember.

There's nothing to be done now: without rest, The Fear would wring her mind into a cross-eyed, shrieking vortex if she were to contend with the store clerk in her present state.  To calm the nerves, we watch some Dylan Moran stand-up on my netbook until sleep comes at last, grateful.

After eating a couple American Breakfasts, Sarah and I look for any place that might rent inner tubes.  The driver of a tuk-tuk (basically a truck with seating in the bed that acts as a cheap taxi) hears our inquiries and herds us into the back.  I couldn't help but notice that all the other passengers already had their inner tubes, but I was sure the driver knew what he was doing, and didn't just throw us on here because he only knows the word "tube".  We find ourselves driven to the river, which is a little ways outside of town, and where you are expected to already have a tube.  Luckily, we were able to negotiate a couple tubes from the expats at the starting point bar.  They cost us 50,000 kip, or around 6 dollars.  The expats throw in the cost of the deposit, as they have no way of getting these back, and in reality are just selling us random tubes that went unclaimed, or simply were lost floating down the river.  Still, a victory nonetheless.  Time to float.

I think most people tend to have a similar experience of Vang Vieng, so I'll walk you through it: When you first show up at the river, you'll cross a bridge to the bar acting as launch point.  On this bridge, there's a tank of Lao Whiskey which you'll be given a free shot of, or two, or three.  If you're me, you find this to be a particularly considerate gesture.  Then at the first bar (where we got our tubes), you'll find yourself surrounded by people dancing, drinking, and playing beer pong.  You'll probably be greeted by some bar reps, and given more free shots.  Again, very thoughtful.  Then, maybe you'll spy the rickety-ass wooden rope swing tower set up over the river.

What am I, the President of Safety Town?  Let's do this.

And before your brain can remind you of the drunken foreigner mortality rate on the river someone spouted off in the tuk-tuk earlier, the rotgut whiskey you've been downing for what feels like hours (but in actuality it's only been 15 minutes) has you already on that tower and nodding at the Laotian guy who was asleep just two seconds ago.  Suddenly, you're in the air and splashing down into dangerously shallow waters as Laotian children laugh, the zipline operator goes back to sleep, and the bar barely waits for you to surface before offering yet more shots.

A process I repeated a few times, for research purposes.

Once you've bought a few beers and had your fill of cheap whiskey, you jump in your tube and drift on the slow current past the gorgeous limestone karsts that flank the river.  Every five minutes or so the roar of shitty sound systems will approach again, volumes cranked within an inch of their lives, blasting across the water the static-filled hits of 80s rock, 90s grunge, and this year's selection of pop, dance, trance, and reggae.  A flavor for every foreigner.

The hills are alive with the sound of Rihanna and white noise.

This signals the next gauntlet of waterside bars, where locals and foreigners alike are waiting, with weighted water bottles tied to rope for throwing to the tubers.  If you want to dock, you grab the bottle and hold on as the rope is taken in.  And, since many of the bars offer free drinks to foreigners who can get tubers into their place, there is never any shortage of people calling for you to come join the party.  From the bar you can drink, dance, drink more, eat the usual Western fare like pizza or fish and chips, and occasionally try one of the swings or slides or jumping platforms that some places offer (although many of them have been shut down because they're so pants-shittingly dangerous, even before you factor in wasted partiers).

In a way, tubing Vang Vieng is a metaphor for the whole Southeast Asia backpacker experience: thousands of foreigners floating down a beautiful, relaxing river as the locals (and the expats working alongside them) literally cast lines and try to reel in as many as possible.  The bait is the same as everywhere else: cheap booze, Western comfort food, the Billboard charts on a busted stereo, and a guy shooting a shot of high-proof whiskey into your mouth with a Super Soaker.  Or maybe that last one is just Vang Vieng.

Pictured: Really smart and incisive metaphor.

The Happy Menu of the previous night wasn't a lone incident, either.  Most of the bars you float by will gladly sell weed, mushrooms, or opium.  I had heard rumors of real, old-school opium dens in Vang Vieng, the kind of place you see in Once Upon a Time in America or From Hell, where everybody lounges half-dead on bunks with long pipes and Lo Pan-fingernails, but nobody I asked was able to provide any leads.  Maybe they were just rumors, in the end.

For some reason I was determined to trip on mushrooms, so each time we stopped I'd ask the bar if they had shroom shakes.  More often that not they did, but if they didn't they'd try to make up for it by showing off their freshly-rolled joints (and they just looked so crestfallen when I turned them down...).  I've never hallucinated before, and even after a couple of loaded shakes it looked like it still wasn't going to happen.  I had tried mushrooms once before in Thailand, and they hadn't done a thing, just like now.  It's hard to believe, but I've got something of a resistance to a lot of drugs, which can be frustrating.  A little dismayed, I smoked a few joints and continued on down the river, which had sadly not become a full-sensory journey into the darkest recesses of my being.  It instead continued to be warm and pleasant and nice.

You've probably already guessed that the place is crawling with party-bro types, and you're absolutely right.    Go back and read the bit again about the whiskey Super Soaker, those are the people for whom Vang Vieng is nothing less than the puka shell-wearing promised land.  The strange thing I noticed, though, is how skittish so many of them were about smoking along the river.  When I would stop at a bar and order a joint, I'd offer it around, but no one ever took me up on it.  Some people would already be too high, but more often I would get people refusing because they were "afraid of getting caught" and "the police might come by."  I didn't know what to make of it.  I suppose there might be some truth in it, and the police might occasionally stage a raid for appearance's sake, but it just doesn't make economic sense.  You're renting your tubes from the government.  If anyone knows what's going on along this booze-and-urine soaked river, it's the people in charge of the extremely poor country who make most of their cash off the debauched backpacker tourist trade.  If the cops were to crack down on the drugs, there goes the town's economy.  And even if there were a raid, most places like these will see 'em coming (or get tipped off beforehand) and warn the customers, because there's no sense in seeing your cash cow locked up.  Still, very few backpackers I met were taking the chance.

"So...much...research..."

Around 5 p.m. the last tuk-tuks back to town start leaving, or at least that's what was shouted at us by a probably-lying tuk-tuk driver.  Seeing a tuk-tuk driver wave frantically and yell that he's the last driver got us out of the river in a hurry, because we free-spirited globe-trotting backpackers really are nothing more than total sheep 90% of the time (and the other 10% of the time recovering from sunburns).  Too fucked up to do much else, I take a shower in our room and fall asleep, still in the shower.

The beautiful haze of this sunset provided by safe and sustainable slash-and-burn farming.

Dusk has set in when I come to, more than a little relieved to discover I haven't drowned.  Sarah wakes up from her more conventional (and some might say ostentatious) bed-nap, and we head out for food.

Meanwhile, the hot air balloons fill the skies for their nightly feeding.

We hole up in a Friends bar for dinner and some post-drinking cocktails, and spend the rest of the night people-watching on those rare occasions when Friends didn't have my complete and hilarious attention.

"HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA" -Everyone watching Friends

One thing I noticed is that no matter how sleazy or debauched a town could be, whether Vang Vieng or Pattaya or whatever, there are always a bunch of families hanging out.  Like, with young children.  Not that young children couldn't appreciate the beautiful scenery and rich culture of a country like Laos or Thailand, but really?  Of all the places you could take your 10-year old to, you chose the place at the top of every "Best Place to get Puke-Hammered" list?  And it isn't by accident a family could end up in Vang Vieng; the only reason people come here is to black out afloat on a rubber donut.  Sure, it has some caves nearby that are supposed to be neat, but so does every other place in Southeast Asia.  Oh, one of the caves has a Sleeping Buddha statue in it?  I swear I have seen more cave Buddhas than I've had hot meals, and my metabolism is crazy.

Seated near our table was a group of the most vile species of backpacker: loud, obnoxious gym rats who constantly mocked the broken English of the local workers, when they weren't openly resenting them for speaking Laotian.  The most annoying of them was really something to watch, like a douchey Tesla as he bravely pioneered revolutionary new ways to be an asshole.  After he was doing ordering his pad thai or whatever, he would bark "Now leave us alone!" at the server with a sneer, and go back to calling every girl who walked by "fit" or "slag", while his buddies chortled and guffawed in a British way that somehow made it all worse.  I'll forever associate them with the clothes that mark all bro-leaning gap year dickbags: Beerlao and "In The Tubing Vang Vieng" t-shirts and tank tops.  They're sold everywhere, and I don't know how, but if you wear one you become 150% more likely do something totally annoying when someone takes a picture of you, like flick off the camera, even if the person taking the picture really wanted it to be a nice photo.  Or even worse...duck lips.

If this logo is on your shirt, you're probably a douchebag.  Please stop date raping.

Our Friends bar closed surprisingly early, around 10 p.m., which seemed to be a common trend.  Despite all the talk of heavy partying, almost all of the bars and restaurants shut down well before midnight.  Sarah went back to the convenience store where she had left her iPod, but they shockingly knew nothing about it, and still wouldn't budge when she offered a reward "if [they] were to find it, somehow."  I consoled her on the loss, which really was very sad, and secretly was super relieved and more than a little amazed that nothing of mine had been lost or stolen.

We get up a little earlier the next day so as to spend more time on the river, and this time really scour the town for the tube rental shop.  It takes some time, during which I test out multiple ATMs and find that my debit card is still not working, but eventually we find the rental place.  The tubes not only cost more to rent than the scrounged-up ones we found yesterday, but the deposit more than doubled the price (and from what I hear, enough tubes got stolen each day from the bars that you are in danger of losing that deposit).  Then, we get to wait an hour for other people to fill our tuk-tuk, as it apparently isn't worth the driver's while to take only two people to the river.  Everything I thought about getting up early was being absolutely vindicated.

At the start of the river we're again given free shots of Lao whiskey, or rather I'm given shots, because Sarah doesn't want hers so the whiskey is thrust upon me.  I drink it all, of course, because of the starving children in Africa.  At the first bar we hit up the rope swing again, and when I swim back to the dock one of the white guys working there forces another shot on me.  "Swimming tax," he says with a smile.  "Nothing's free."  I know he was being cute, but I felt something dark behind those words, although it might have been my liver crying out like Marlon Brando was behind it with a stick of butter.

Probably one of the better taxes, though.

We float on, the weather a little more overcast than the last day but still a lovely view, and very peaceful (or at least in the quiet stretches of the river between bars and boomboxes).  At Sarah's suggestion, we stop at a place that has tables and seating set up right on the water where it's shallow.

Sarah's Suggestion, Or: The Guy Under The Bridge With A Rope Won't Take No For An Answer

Sarah orders a mojito bucket, which when it came back appeared to be mint leaves floating in rum and pink lemonade.  Close enough, and also not bad at all.  I ask for a happy menu, and order a joint.  I was finally able to buy drugs without awkward scooter rides and exchanges in dark alleys, and I was going to take full advantage of it.

A guy comes over, says "Sabai dee," and shakes our hands, and with his other hand leaves behind a lighter and the joint I ordered.  Nice.  When we asked how much for the joint, as there was no price on the menu, he cheerfully replied: "Free!"  But...how...?!  "Free with bucket!" he says, referring to Sarah's mojito.  With every bucket drink, a free joint.  Now, the bucket cost about eight dollars, but that was a fair price for the area, and more than fair for a concept that hinted at a kinder, more joyful universe.

A universe that ends segregated seating with the mer-people.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of all of this was I had no hangover.  Whatsoever.  In fact, I hadn't had a hangover since starting this trip, despite many ample opportunities, but even after running the gauntlet of this river of sin I felt tip-top.  I can't explain it, other than annual virgin sacrifices by the locals that I'm really too culturally unaware to judge.

Many bars along the river give out loops of yarn in different colors, to be worn as bracelets.  Somehow I had completely missed out on this the previous day, but now I could see them on the majority of our fellow tubers.  Some had been here for weeks and weeks and proudly displayed full gauntlets made of dozens of bracelets, multiple rainbow spectrums encircling their wrists like rings on an alcoholic tree.  I had been warned before coming here that this place could be hard to leave, but after two days on the river I was honestly starting to tire of it.  And I know I sound like the whiny guy in A Brave New World, but the unrelenting gluttony, sloth, and exploitation of both locals and foreigners was wearing on me.  Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory was losing its luster.

Also, if the Oompa Loompas had babies hidden behind the chocolate river that they were struggling to take care of,  it'd be kind of a bummer.

We stop for the final time at one of the last bars along the river, where further drinks and joints are shared between the two of us, and I near full and complete catatonia.

God, I'm gonna be the next fucking Bill Bryson.

The owner comes out to talk to us for a bit, and eventually asks Sarah to help out with his sign.  "You write good English, yes?  What should my sign say?  Get lot of people!"  He offered her a sharpie and tore off the back of a cigarette pack to write on, and Sarah was happy to oblige.  In neat block letters, she wrote "Last Place For Jump + Happy Menu", emphasizing the sweet jumping platform in a nearby tree, and the last port on the river for drugs.

In exchange for her help, the owner gave us free drinks, which did not help when Sarah started encouraging me to try the jumping platform.  Wary of all the drunk tourists who drown each year, or break their legs, or rupture their eardrums, and can find no medical help nearby, but also wary of being a scaredypants, I decided to hell with it.

I'm gonna make a bad decision.

"Luckily, all that drinking has given me enough courage to do something stupid like jump off this drunk."

And hey, I didn't die, or even get a little pink-eye, which hey is also a thing around here.

I knew I was invincible!  Time to start living life like a Highlander.

Soon the tuk-tuk drivers became vocal again, and the time to leave the river drew near.  In town, we went back to the same restaurant we had gone to our first night here.  I hadn't forgotten their happy menu, and for my last night in Vang Vieng I was finally going to try some opium.

It's time.

I hadn't been able to find the classic opium den of my dreams, so I was just going to have to make do here.  After I order an opium joint and an opium tea (to really get that opium cherry popped), the owner indicates a table far in the back, on the bank of the river.  Here, there's more seclusion, and less chances of nosy cops from the road looking in.

Although we would miss all the decor of a Chinese buffet on Karaoke Night.

The tea and the joint arrive, and my anticipation builds to a fever pitch.  Finally, I would discover what men used to give their bodies and souls for, before meth came along and trashy-d up the place.

The coolest tea.

I smoked.  I drank.  And I felt...nothing.  It seemed to me no different from weed, except a little more expensive.  Then, the restaurant started playing the Macarena, and opium was ruined forever.  No one should have to chase the dragon to that.  I finished my opium, but only because I was raised properly, and we left.  "I should've waited for a den," I thought to myself in bed that night, over and over, clutching my pillow in sorrow.  "I should've waited for a den."