Tubing in Vang Vieng on Nom Song River

The first bar before you start tubing at and to get your drink on.

River side bars

Lao Lao

Sunset on Nom Song

So we picked up our tubes at noon then we were off to the starting point upstream of the river in a tuk-tuk. Karrie and I thought it was going to be nice and quiet float down the river surrounded with beautiful scenery. As soon as we arrived there was thumping music on both sides of us and people pre drinking beers and buckets before they have even started tubing.There was cans of spray paints and stencils for your body and people giving out string bracelets for free buckets at different bars in the city later in the evening.

We ourselves stopped at 5/6 bars before it was time to head to the ending point to drop off your tube by 6pm. So after experiencing it first hand I realized that no one can get to the end by 6pm since there are about 8 bars right at the beginning of the river, eventually becoming more sparse and nothing near the end....there is about 3km from the last bar to the end and by then if you haven't already gotten a good head start to float down you are going to hit sunset and that is when it starts to become cold, dark and disorienting. So along the way before the end there are Lao people on the side screaming tuk tuk at us to get us back into the city on time and make a buck or should I say some kips.

Side note: Lao Lao a traditional rice whiskey. There is a picture of it above, I was offered some and I just couldn't bring myself to drink it. Karrie on the other hand had the balls to do it. Karrie says, "It could remove paint and it tasted like chemicals, umm like turpentine and it could have kicked Everclears ass."

So to rent a tub and deposit for returning it at 6pm totaled out to 115,000 Kips ($15.00CAD) and 60,000 of that was the deposit so when you bring your tube back after 6pm they charge you 20,000 pretty much everyone ends up paying this fee.

Besides this small bit about the deposit of the tube and having everything on the riverside preventing you from bringing it back on time, I highly recommend it to everyone who comes to Laos, Vang Vieng.

This has been my favorite city of my trip so far, I am sure that this opinion very well will change as we travel more.

BTW: they play pendulum, some reggae and drum and bass everywhere in Vang Vieng even along the riverside bars.