REST DAYS: Vang Vieng and Environs

I was very disappointed at first with Vang Vieng. I needed to rest, though, because I was feeling a little worn out and the meds were messing a bit with my stomach and appetite. I didn't like the fact that even though I was 4km outside town, it was noisy all day at my first guest house (so much for relaxing in the hammock!). There was construction going on down the street (where isn't there construction going on in Laos?) from 6AM to 10PM with an excavator running nearly the whole day. Worse than that, there was incessant sounds of techno music and, closer to sunset, drunken singing of foreigners. I couldn't figure out what it was until I discovered that the road that led to my place was the same road used by mini buses all day long dropping hundreds and hundreds of foreigners off to inner tube the 4km back to town. The techno music, Bob Marley (same record each day I was there), Metalica, and American Pop Rock emanated from powerful sound systems at the riverside bars serving the inner tubers. I couldn't believe it. In the middle of nowhere, there were foreigners dancing to techno music, swinging on high trapeze wires and zip lines, plunging into the river and drinking like camels. I was determined to get out of town, but didn't really have the energy.

I discovered that my friend Alex from BC was in town at a small place and liked it very much. I met him down there and told him I'd stay if he would go boating with me. Luckily (I didn't realize how crowded town was), I got a room right off the bat and, being a very experience kayaker, Alex was interested in spending time on the river. I'm lucky I stayed there because it was here I realized and experienced that Vang Vieng was not only about "bucket bars" (bars selling small pales of whisky for a fraction of a song), "Happy" meals (normal foods laced with psychoactive and psychadelic stimulants) and TV bars (literally, bars and restaurants with all the chairs pointing in the same direction, facing large TVs mostly showing reruns of "Friends," I'm dead serious!).

It was here that I experience true hammock time, napping and relaxing. The setting is incredible and during the day, the partiers are either on their way out of town hung over, they're hung over or they're out on the river helping their hang over with more drinking and town is nearly silent. The view from the guest house, seeing that it's up on the cliff above "the island," is awesome at sunrise, mid-day, sunset--I took many photos! Down at the river, several bars have river side bungalows containing only hammocks to lounge around in and look lazily on the passing waters or the towering karst. I used the hammock at our guest house, a hammock down at the river and just relaxed the days away. I rested quite a bit, used the VERY fast internet in town to download radio and news to my MP3 player and started and finished Hemmingway's "A Farwell to Arms." (Sorry, really didn't like the setup for tragedy at the end, but loved the story and character development) As I said, Alex and I also took a half day to float down the river about 8km in kayaks, which was pleasant when we weren't around the bars. The Nam Song is lovely.

Other than that, I tried to fall asleep early at night to avoid the sounds of foreigners in the distance or I'd hang out with friends at the guest house and chat. I thank Alex for sharing "Shaharizod" with me one evening, which made the sunset and afterglow so pleasant!!! Then, he put on Beethoven's 5th, saying he'd love to blast that on loud PAs over the rave! Literally, with the loud breakbeats, trance and techno, fire spinners and wild night atmosphere, I felt like I was right back in Black Rock City. Fortunately, not everyone in Vang Vieng thinks that energy is what the place is about. When I woke one morning for breakfast, the guest house owner was playing Chopin piano solos quietly in the office. It made for such a lovely morning looking out across the valley at the light of sunrise illuminating the peaks. I guess, in the end, there's something for everyone in this town and I found the calm I was looking for and needing.