The ‘Blue Lagoon’….

Posted by Kylie in Asia, Laos, Trip

Vang Vieng used to be the party capital of Laos, with tubing, opium cocktails, and death slides being the activities of choice. A few years ago, after several tourist deaths, the government clamped down and closed most of the bars. The town is re-establishing itself as a centre for outdoor pursuits such as rock climbing and mountain biking. Tubing is also making a comeback, and a few river side bars have re-opened.

I arrived in Vang Vieng by myself, with Graham following a couple days behind. I booked into the Central Backpackers and immediately found a nice group of Peruvians, Canadians, Spanish and Brits to hang out with. We planned a tubing trip for the next day and had an early night. I was in a dorm with four single beds and one bunk bed. Somehow I drew what seemed to be the short straw and got the top bunk, which was effectively like sleeping on a stage in a room with five guys. I had the last laugh though as the ceiling fan was right above me and kept me cool while the others roasted.

Tubing starts mid-afternoon, with a tuk-tuk ride to the first bar. Here there are plenty of bar sports on offer, such as beer pong, as well as volleyball, frisbee and basketball. It seemed like lots of people had visited a few other bars on the way though, so we had some people-watching fun before playing the worlds slowest game of beer pong. Once everyone had drunk a couple of beers and sampled the local whisky (as lethal as it sounds), we all jumped into some tractor tyre inner tubes and floated to the next bar. The afternoon was spent socially floating down the river between bars with some beers. Its much more sedate than it was a few years ago, but still results in a lot of hammered people, sat in a rubber ring in a fast-flowing river! Our group decided to head home at about 5pm as the last stretch takes around 50 minutes. As we neared the end point we had to frantically paddle to the side to ensure we weren’t carried off down the Mekon. We then had to run through town barefoot, fully clothed but soaking wet to ensure we got our deposit back by the 6pm deadline. There are no photos of this fun as water and cameras don’t make great companions!

When Graham arrived a couple of days later, we hired some mountain bikes and set out (armed with a hand-drawn map) in search of the Blue Lagoon. After cycling along 7 km of very bumpy dirt track and being thoroughly shaken around (quite painfully in my case as I have a broken toe), we found the sign for our destination. At the entrance we payed the obligatory site fees…. only to find a muddy brown river. After questioning several people we realised that this was indeed the Blue Lagoon, but it was neither blue nor a lagoon. Ah well. A dip in the ice cold water was still refreshing.

Cycling past rice paddies

The ‘Blue Lagoon’

At least it was a nice place to relax

There was also a cave nearby, about 200m up a karst cliff. We climbed up the very steep path and Graham had a look around.It was very wet and slippy inside, with not much light. I was happy to cycle for ten miles and climb a cliff with a newly broken toe, but I drew the line at this madness….