Travel Day: Vang Vieng

As the old adage goes, all good things must come to an end, and so too must our stay in Luang Prabang. Today is day seven of a fifteen day visa, you see, and there’s still plenty of Laos left to see.

A sad inevitability to be sure, the group is starting to dissolve bit by bit as we begin heading in our own directions. Andrew is going to the north while the rest of us are taking the southern route to Vang Vieng. We said our goodbyes in front of the girls’ guesthouse before hopping on a sawngthaew to the bus terminal.

While researching this leg of the trip, I’d read all sorts of horror stories regarding route 13, the winding mountain road to Vang Vieng. There have been reports floating around about Hmong rebels attacking buses along the stretch in recent years. I’d also heard that accidents (over cliffs, no less) and breakdowns occur with amazing frequency in this country. Ignorance is bliss sometimes.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the bus pulled up to the town’s dusty old bus station (at the end of an ancient U.S. landing strip) with little to report.

The term they use for towns like Vang Vieng is “Ban Farang” or “foreigner village” because of its high concentration of tourists. The at times hedonistic lifestyle of some members of the backpacker community (at least in my admittedly conservative opinion) has introduced businesses and products that probably wouldn’t exist here otherwise. For example, I could walk out across the street right now and order up a “happy pizza.” What makes it happy, you ask? Magic mushrooms. I’ve been approached several times by local kids selling marijuana and opium as well.

But beyond all that, it’s a nice little town, with dirt roads for main streets and tractors dominating the almost nonexistent traffic. The area surrounding the town is chock full of activities as well (though I probably won’t be here long enough to enjoy most of them). We (and by that I mean the remainder of our group - Thien An, Caroline and I) plan on a relaxing afternoon tubing down the Nam Song river tomorrow.

At dusk, the streets were bathed in a warm orange glow, giving our surroundings a film-like ambiance. Thien An, one of my lovely Swiss companions asked what the English word for it was. My best answer was “surreal.”

My guess is the glow is a byproduct of all the dust kicked up during the construction work prevalent everywhere in the town center. With the relatively recent opening of Laos’ borders to tourists, towns like Vang Vieng are expanding exponentially.

The sun setting behind a limestone mountain: