As I mentioned previously, I took the overnight train from Bangok up to Vientiane. While the train was great, it was actually not quite as easy as I made it sound. The train itself only goes to the Thai border, where you can pass trough Thai immigration and hop on another tiny train. That only goes a couple miles, until you disembark and get your Laos visa (which seemed much less bargain-y that Cambodia's did, by the way). After that, you're still a good 20 kms from Vientiane, so it's time as a solo traveler to once again buddy up with some fellow travelers and catch a taxi into the city. By the time I actually got to a guesthouse after all this hullabaloo, it was afternoon. Add a shower to the mix and I didn't get out into Vientiane until almost 2pm.
But the point of the story is that I wasn't missing much. The capital of and largest city in Laos, Vientiane has a couple universities, it's own stock market, a bowling alley*, and some honest-to-goodness industry. But what it doesn't have is much to see for tourists. There's a few temples--if you're not already completely templed-out**. There's a small arch reminiscent of the Arc de Triomphe***. And there's a not-bad-looking riverside park that wanders next to the Mekong for a couple kms. All of it nice enough, but exactly zero of it memorable.
*Bowling alleys are actually pretty ubiquitous in Laos, if you'll allow me slightly change the meaning of "ubiquitous" to a more Laotian "one per city". When curfew hits--which can be anywhere from 10 to midnight depending where you are--the only place allowed to stay open is the bowling alley. So anyone in need of a Pleasantville-style vacation, Laos is certainly your place!
**See also, castled-out in Ireland, cathedraled-out in Rome, or museumed-out in Paris.
***Actually, the arch has a funny story. The US gave Laos a whole lot of cement and money meant to build a runway for an airport. The Laotian government decided that wasn't top priority and built the arch instead. Now it's nicknamed The Vertical Runway.
So needless to say, I headed out of Vientiane the next morning and took a bus up to one my favorite places on this entire trip thus far--Vang Vieng. I'm not sure how many people actually live there, but I can't be anymore than than twenty thousand or so. But these people have one of the best views I ever seen--towering karast cliffs (almost resembling Halong Bay's) standing guard over the Nam Song River, the absolute life-blood of the town.
Vang Vieng actually has a bit of a strange history--especially for a place like Laos (where I just got through telling you the bowling alley is the center of night-time activities). For the past twenty years or so, backpackers have descended here on their grand tours of SE Asia, and gradually turned the town into a nonstop party, with the main for of entertainment being drugs and tubing drunkenly down the river. Late last year (after 22 tubers died on the river, might I add), the Laos government abruptly cracked down on both these activities--from imposing draconianly-harsh penalties for smoking weed, closing every riverside bar that enabled the tubers, and enforcing rules that make you cover up our swimsuit in town. In fact, since the beginning of 2013, every travel blog post I've read by gap year travelers has lamented the loss of Vang Vieng as a hotspot.
I never saw Vang Vieng "in it's prime"****, if you would, but I don't mourn the change at all. I just adored the quiet town that is still an amazing departure point for tons of adventure activities! The river is still fantastic, and you can still float down it in a tube, just sans your Beerlao. You can kayak. You can cave. You can rock climb. There are waterfalls just a hop skip and a jump outside of town. Maybe it's just because I'm not 22 anymore or at the point in my life wherbed running too much is worth the hangover, but I didn't for one second wish I was stumbling drunkenly down the street in my bikini. And trust me, kayaking the Nam Song is a lot less stressful when you're sure you're not going to accidentally run into hundreds of sloshed tubers.
****There actually is one last remnant of Vang Vieng's prior life--every resaurant and bar in town plays Friends DVDs on a continuous loop. While not the sort of thing I was feeling particularly nostalgic for, it's statistically impossible not to stop and watch Joey in evey one of Chadler's clothes, or Ross screaming about being on a break.
So in Vang Vieng, I flipped my kayak on the wet-season river more times than I can count. I jumped in a tube and wiggled myself through the tiniest crack in a cave wall. I trekked through rice parties. I splashed around in the blue lagoon. And I didn't one bemoan the fact that I hadn't gotten to Vang Vieng before the "glory days" were over.