Sex, Drugs, Booz, and Tubes

Vang Vieng Laos, a city with beautifull karst scenery, clear water, caves. Yet this tiny little city hides or bluntly shows the dark side of western influence.

Backpackers, and tourists transit through here on the way to Luang Prabang or Vientiane.

The "sin" city of Laos, where many foreigners come for not just the scenery, but also the easy and lax flow of weed and opium, and magic mushroom. I am guessing 70% of the people are using one form of drug or the other based my very unscientific observation of the group I was traveling with.

It is really unfortunate for the place where you can do a lazy tubing down the river, caving, rock climbing, kayaking, biking, trekking, visiting small villages, or just doing nothing/sun bathing on the river bank.

I went tubing for the first time, where beer bars lines the river bank ready to serve the boozing westerners. They even added incentive like rope swing, zip-lines, platform jumping to grab (literaly they have long baboon stick to drag the tubers to the shore) tubers attention. Many of the tubes also smoked weed as well, so some of them are totally zone out by the time they reach town.

The second day , I went by myself (away from booze and weed people for a while) and did a caving/kayaking/trekking. It was great even though I fell into water couple times, banged my leg, bitten by mosiquitos, I had great time. Don't need drug and booze to have fun like other people.

Most people smoked weed openly, and I heard once in a while the police will arrest couple people and fine them $500 each and let them go. So I think the police/government tolerate this to attract druggies, bring in tourst money, and pocket the revenue.

O, I forgot to mention the sex part. This is a real great story, too long and complex to explain. Anyway it involves a Canadian lady that was on the same bus as us, and her desperate search for sex in the city and her "dream" man she met in Thailand (an American from Denver). The guy was here and wasn't interested in her. BTW I roomed with her for one night! Other people make fun of me about what is going to happen when she found a man and bring him back and worst yet, when she did not find a man! BTW, she got big boos and big belly

O, the great group of people I was traveled with from Vientiane/Vang Vieng and eventually again in Luang Prabang included a Chinese Australian, a Czech Australian, a Dutch, an American couple from Settle, an Irish lady. A very strange mix of people, and I do enjoyed their company (most of the time) depite the constant booze and weed use by 5 of the 6 people (guess who did not smoked weed, well the person tried one puff)?