Laos…Holy Cow!

So the bus ride from the capital of Laos to V.V. was spectacular; lush green jungles wrapping around tall rock outcroppings. This place reminds me of Halong Bay, only, without the ocean. Every time we look out the window the scenery seems to slap us in the face with its awesomeness. We arrive in V.V. and it is a very interesting little town filled with Arab style seating restaurants perfect for lounging around and watching Friends, The Simpsons, or Family Guys which are playing 24/7 in each restaurant. The streets seem to be lined with an overabundance of quick sandwich stands and every guesthouse we stopped in had a very welcoming feeling to it. All of the tourists (young Europeans) don’t seem to have that super-energetic frenzy that we have noticed in the other places we visited. All in all, this town had a very weird ora about it. We had come here because some of our traveling buddies said it was THEE place in Laos to go, they were famous for their “tubing”. After finding a cheap guesthouse we flagged down a Tuk Tuk and ventured towards the “tubing”….. We descended upon a surreal scene, and finally found out what tubing was. The Meking river runs through Laos and especially along side this town. So, some very smart Laoacions decided to build iconic spring break bars all down a section of river and rent tubes out to party goers to drift down river from bar to bar. But the fun doesn’t stop there, each bar has its own gimic. For example our favorite bars had 20-25m jumps and swings and ziplines where extremely inebriated people could go swimming in the moderately strong current of the Meking River (don’t worry there were locals to throw life-lines and pull you into their bar). Other bars had mud wrestling/volleyball/tug-o-war. Still others had long slide shoots that spit you out at dizzying speeds into the coffee brown water. But I digress, we were greeted by a mob scene of half naked Spring breaking Europeans, loud music, and free buckets (a bucket is a small 2 liter bucket that is filled with one whole bottle of the booze of your choice, Red Bull, and a mixer over ice). Everyone was wasted, to say the least, and people were covered in marker and spray paint (yes, they spray painted stencils on people and for some just covered them in paint head to toe). Mateo and I arrived late, so all the free bucket deals had passed and the regular prices were a bit too steep. We had a few drinks and went off the flying trapezes a few times. The next morning we realized that this town was made for the common bing drinker, as everyone slowly crawled out of where ever they slept the night before and into the restaurants with couch seating and watched cartoons all morning. This time Matt and I wanted to experience the bar scene full on so we went tubing at 1pm. Bar 1 – this 60 year old woman named “mamma” came bounding over to us and shouted that it was her b-day and made us our first free SUPER-bucket which was a 2 gallon bucket for us to share with whom we pleased. Then after stomping some Europeans at beer pong we hit the water a few times. We wanted to explore further down the river so we drifted to Mud Bar where we joined a group for tug-o-war session (this is where I broke my big toe, but didn’t notice until the next morning). After tugging a bit we got into an epic mud wrestling match with 20 people! The rest of the day is a blur and I am glad I am here as sort of my last sha-bang before entering the professional world. It is hard to put into words exactly how ridiculous this place really is or the pure quantity of alcohol consumed daily and not to forget that one had to merely look up from their bucket to catch a magnificent back drop of towering mountains. Matt and I will be heading to Bangkok soon to end our trip. We miss everyone terribly and have tons of funny stories to share. (mamacita te extrano muchisimo!)