Tubing in Vang Vieng

115,000 kip to rent a tube. 60,000 for a deposit if you lose the ring. Though if you brought the tube back late (after 6pm) there was a 20,000 kip fine.Apparently it normaly takes about 3-4 hours to float down the river without stopping, but while i was there they thought it was about an hour, due to the heavy rain.you could see the river was running fast. I was also told that about 12 people had died so far this year. It sounds quite bad, but it is understandable. Tubing is about getting intoxicated on a river.When you have hundreds of people a day drinking like theyre at a night out back home and then swimming in a strong current It would be more surprising if there werent any deaths. Vang vieng is also known to have a not so underground drug culture too. Because im verry sensible I stuck to just a couple of beers.
The atmosphere was good though and even in low season there were at least 50 people within sight at any time. The bars buy the river had anywhere from 10-100 people in them. The bars with the slides stole the most people from the water though.Tubing wasnt exactly what i expected. I thought it was going to be a more relaxed affair, just floading down the rivver with beer in hand. but In reality the floating down the river was just to get to the next bar, where you stopped, got out your ring and danced on their platform for 10-20 minutes before geting on your ring again and going to the next bar.It might be a bit different when the rivver is slower, but I doubt the change will be significant.
We finished tubing at 7pm just as it was getting dark (and cold, which I think was the first time I have felt cold in asia other than in the AC busses) but most people were happy to stay. We went back to the hotel and then went for food. You could watch a slow stream of people returning their rings untill quite late (about 12pm). Some of these people were obviously smashed.It will also be pitch black on the rivver from about 7:30 as it was not well lit. It is Interesting to see how much of a difference there is in health and safety between a country like laos and western countries. In the west tubing would have been stoped before anyone even thought about creating it.