Somewhere in the ghetto, skid row, downtown dumpsville, aka Vang Vieng, Laos:
I left Luang Prabang on Thursday afternoon, headed for Vang Vieng. I now wished I hadn’t. I’d fallen in love with LP at first glance; a peaceful little gem nestled perfectly at the side of the Mekong, mountains protecting it on either side. Had I stayed a couple more days I think I would’ve gotten all I wanted out of Luang Prabang, however, I’d hastily booked accommodation in Vang Vieng, and not wanting to delay my entry into Cambodia the following week, I decided to carry on my journey as previously planned.
Initially, I wasn’t going to write about Day 22, as most of it was spent reading my book in a coffee shop and then sitting on a bus. But once I arrived in Vang Vieng at around 7:30pm on that Thursday evening, the rain pissing from the heavens, and the town dark and damp, I couldn’t help but put pen to paper, for what happened next was to shape the course of the next few days and change my attitude towards my trip.
Chicago had already left for Vang Vieng on Wednesday and as I was following her – albeit a day behind – we agreed to meet for dinner once I’d arrived and had settled in my accommodation. She’d been keeping contact with me since her departure and had sent me some frantic messages concerning her hostels. The first one she’d checked into had been riddled with bed bugs so she’d been forced to stay elsewhere (nobody, and I mean NOBODY, wants bed bugs…ever!). On checking into a second hostel she again was confronted with bed bugs and so took it upon herself to upgrade her budget and pay for a hotel.
With her room safely bed bug free, she seemed to be more at ease and offered me a place to crash if I needed. I politely refused as I said I’d already booked some accommodation. Anyway, as I trudged my way through the rain to my hostel, I tried to take in my surroundings and here’s what I deciphered: Vang Vieng in the rain (and probably even in the sunshine too) is an absolute shit hole. It’s a hovel of a place, built solely on tourism, where backpackers go to partake in drunken tubing down the river; where groups of travellers can eat ‘happy pizzas’ and get stoned while listening to shit music; where Korean tourists flock en-masse to participate in heavy drinking and practice water aerobatics at the Blue Lagoon; where bin bags full of litter line the streets and tuk tuk drivers congregate in groups to intimidate potential customers into paying over the odds for their services. And the rain didn’t stop.
As I approached my hostel I was praying for it to be ok. I didn’t think I could deal with bed bugs; and I hoped it wouldn’t be full of drunken idiots and spaced out wasters. I needn’t have worried much about the bed bug situation though as I didn’t even make it to a room. The hostel was not how I expected it to be – it looked dimly lit, dingy and cramped, and not at all comfortable; the patrons looked half baked and the staff weren’t particularly attentive; the manager lurching out from a door at the side of the entrance, bleary eyed, looking like he’d just woken up (at 19:30). And when they couldn’t find my reservation, informed me that they didn’t have a bed for me, and condescendingly offered me an orange squash while complacently trying to figure out what had happened, I knew I was done.
I phoned Chicago and asked if her offer of a place to crash still stood. Thankfully she said yes, so off I went again, in the rain.
My first impressions of Vang Vieng were not good. It felt like an apocalyptic zombieland where all the drug addled no marks had been sent to recover, re-group and comedown. I hadn’t come to the town with the intention of partaking in the typical backpacker activities; I hadn’t come to party; I’d come to hire a bike and cycle to the caves; I’d come to climb the mountains and get some good views; to take in the scenery and the landscapes; but as I reached Chicago’s hotel I knew I didn’t want to stay in the centre of the town for much longer. A friend from back home had told me about some bungalows and guest houses that were situated over the river, away from the chaos and squalor; I made a mental note to check them out and find an alternative place to stay for the rest of my time there; and I hoped and prayed that by tomorrow the rain would’ve died down and in the light of day Vang Vieng would offer itself a chance at redemption.
Chasing Amy-Lou 