Tubing on the Nong Sam

Day 77: Vang Vieng, Laos
So it's been a busy couple of days in Vang Vieng, the realisation that my trip is coming to a close is going down like a lead balloon. Have spent the daylight hours of the last week on the river participating in an activity unique to this region, Tubing.
So to start your day you go and grab a tube (truck tire tube) and take a tuk tuk up river for about 10kms. You pay 50,000 Kip (US$4) for the tube plus the same for the deposit on the tube (which the operator has gone to great lengths to stop the participant from claiming back).
The tuk tuk deposits you on the side of the river at the first of two makeshift bars....
Each bar has it's own attraction, for example, the first has a massive swing which you get on about 15 metres up above the roof on a perch which looks to be made of matchsticks. From here you swing down and drop into the water below, the crowd below cheering for any particularly acrobatic entries (or painful bellyflops).
The next bar has a flying fox, the next a giant trapeze, the next a slide, the next a mud volleyball court, and so on and so on.
All up there are about 8 bars along the first 1km stretch of river, you bar hop along the river until you find the one with the attraction you like, jump on your tube and the river will carry you along to it, the bar staff throw out a line to you when you are close and pull you in.
It becomes very pissy very quickly....
It's important to make sure you aren't the last one at any bar or you will be left without a tube and have to tuk tuk it back to town. The tube rental operators pay the local kids 10,000 kip to steal tubes from the bars so they don't have to pay the full deposit back to the tuber, generally when there are only a few left there is a mad ruch onto the next bar....
All in all it takes 1 hour to tube from the entry point to the exit at the start of Vang Vieng but add in the time spent at the bars you are looking at a good 4-6 hours non the river. Very Messy....





When the sun sets the pilgrimage back to town along the river begins, quite a unique scene to see with 50-100 people in rubber tubes convoying their way downstream....
At the end of the trip the local kids arrive to guide you back to shore, they are making a killing here with some tubers giving them up to $US10 at a time for their help, which becomes invaluable as the darkness sets in earnest...
After that, the night begins!