Turtle Races in Vang Vieng

Two express buses a day make the run north from Vientiane to Vang Vieng - and, unsurprisingly, they're packed to the brim with foreigners hoping to avoid the standard start and stop routine of the local buses. Problem is that between the high demand and an uncoordinated ticket selling system, the seats are routinely over-booked, and our bus was no exception. Not a problem for me and my seat mate (an older Dutch professor who was suddenly traveling solo after his daughter couldn't fly into Bangkok). We had arrived early enough to snag a couple of front row seats. By our scheduled departure time every single seat was full and there were still a half dozen ticket holding passengers standing outside the door. What to do? Well, if you're in Laos (or Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, etc..) you fill the aisles with plastic patio chairs and pile on in. Bodies, chairs, and backpacks jamming the aisles, we eventually left Vientiane behind, the overloaded, badly shocked bus bottoming out over every pothole. If nothing else, by sitting up front I had slightly more leg room than most and a clear shot at the door in the event of a rollover. You take what you can get.

I had heard a lot about Vang Vieng before I arrived and, to be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect. It seemed to be one of those passionately love it or absolutely detest it sort of places that have be thoroughly "discovered" by the Lonely Planet-toting, international backpacker set. But given my aversion to long bus rides, Vang Vieng made an obvious midway layover spot between Vientiane and points further north. Besides, I had also heard that no matter your eventual take on the town itself, the scenery and countryside around Vang Vieng is some of the most spectacular in all of Laos. With all of that in mind, I decided to suck it up, stay for a couple of days, and see for myself what it was all about.

This is a good place to mention an event that occurs whenever a bus (over)loaded with backpack-lugging foreigners rolls into a city, town, or village. Backpackers, almost by definition, hardly ever make advanced reservations for accommodations leading, of course, to a scramble for rooms once they arrive. Not much fun to participate in, but always entertaining to watch from the comfort of a sidewalk cafe with cold beer in hand, the "turtle races" are made up of travelers - either singly, in pairs, or often in large groups (herds?) - wandering the streets, guidebooks in hand, racing from guest house to guest house in search of a bed for the night. Technically, there are "snails" (those wearing only an oversize backpack) and "turtles" (those wearing an oversize backpack on their backs with a smaller day pack worn in reverse over the chest). Although a distinct minority, there are also those who masochistically drag their wheeled luggage all over the developing world, but I haven't come up with a name for them yet. At any rate, it's easy to avoid the race by (1) booking ahead, (2) arriving early enough in the day that you're bound to get a spot in your first-choice guesthouse, or (3) hop on the motorbike belonging to the first hotel tout you see and hope for the best.

Arriving in Vang Vieng late in the day on a bus with at least fifty other travelers chomping at the bit for an available bed, I chose option number 3 and it actually worked out perfectly. I ended up in a quiet $5 bungalow in the "local" end of town, immediately dropped my bags, and wandered back to the main drag in search of a much needed meal. By this time the turtles were scurrying this way and that as downtown rooms filled up and, just to stiffen the competition a bit, before long the late bus from Vientiane arrived with a whole new batch of racers. After a quick dinner of laap (Lao meat and mint salad) and sticky rice, I walked down to the Nam Song river and bumped into an American couple, dusty and covered in sweat, dragging their wheeled suitcases through the sand and cobblestones at the rivers edge. They seemed to be lost and rooms - or at least the ones they were willing to pay for -were filling up faster than they could drag their luggage. They were about to completely lose it and I'm pretty sure she had been screaming at him just before I showed up. Feeling a little sorry for them, I offered to help - show them my map, offer a suggestion, something - but they declined and wandered off into the dusk.

But, I had arrived, found a home for the next few days and that was good enough for me. Tomorrow, I'll start sussing out this whole Vang Vieng thing.