Vang Vieng - Love it or hate it?

After being here a couple of days it's easy to see how Vang Vieng's "love it or hate it" reputation developed. First the hate: Vang Vieng attracts an almost Daytona Beach spring break crowd of young travelers and while I won't presume to know their motives, the main draw for most of them seems to be the chance to get absolutely blitzed on cheap and readily available drugs in the company of other foreigners. For this crowd, the spectacular scenery provides a nice backdrop to the party and the local Lao culture mostly takes a backseat. Over the years, an inner-tubing circuit has been set up on the river running through town complete with float-up bars, blaring stereos, flip-flop and t-shirt stands, and dozens of restaurants making stabs at western fare. There are, of course, the "happy meals" and, in a bizarre twist on the opium dens of old, television bars have sprouted up downtown providing (seriously) endless loops of the "Friends" reruns for the glassy-eyed to zone out on. In my hyper-judgmental opinion, the biggest problem of all is the fairly complete lack of respect for the local culture and Lao standards of modesty. It's the bare chested dudes and bikini-clad girls wandering (or stumbling) down the streets, either uninformed or uninterested in the local customs that I just don't get. Perfect example: as I write this at 7:10am, there's a scruffy looking blond guy staggering down the main drag wearing nothing but a low slung pair of dirty swim trunks - no shirt, no shoes, just a hairy butt crack. A perfect ambassador from the western world. For the record, I want you all to know that it's not easy being the preachy moral conscience of the backpacking world...ha ha. At any rate, I suppose it's not like the locals don't encourage and benefit from the behavior - I didn't notice any falang (foreign) owned t.v. bars. But I suppose it's hard to argue with the flood of dollars, euros, and baht that the visitors bring into town........same old story.

Ok, that's one take on Vang Vieng. Now, here's another, and the one I ultimately walked away with. Despite all of the above, Vang Vieng has turned out to be one of my favorite places in all of Laos (Luang Prabang notwithstanding). As promised, the scenery surrounding town - the reason Vang Vieng began drawing travelers in the first place - is absolutely spectacular. A mountain range of limestone karsts draped in green and dotted with caves lies just across the beautiful Nam Song river. A couple of bridges connect Vang Vieng with the far side, accessing dirt roads that lead to small Hmong villages in the heart of the mountain range. The whole area reminds me of Guilin and Yangshou, China or the karst country of northern Vietnam.

By staying on the south (quiet) end of town, it was easy enough to avoid the craziness found a few blocks north. My guesthouse was run by friendly family and I spent a couple early mornings with the father and his son, Su, drinking coffee around a campfire they had burning out front (easy way to get rid of construction debris). One day was spent on a rented bicycle exploring the city side of the river, and the following day I spent on motorbike checking out the backroads on the far side of the Nam Song. I managed to find my way to some of the most impressive limestone caverns I've ever seen - all the more so, because I had them entirely to myself (if you don't count the numerous Buddha statues that seem to inhabit all Asian caves). Turquiose blue swimming holes, pristine river beaches, beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and the friendly locals and ex-pats that I met topped the whole experience off.

In the end, I guess the whole Vang Vieng thing depends upon your point of view - and your willingness to look the other way if at first you don't like what you see. I won't be so self-rightous as to say that my way is the right way - different strokes for different folks - and it was nice to find that Vang Vieng could accomodate them all.