Caulk the Wagon and Ford the River: Our Adventure to Vang Vieng

Let me tell you about how we got from SR to Vang Vieng, Laos, the site of the infamous “In the Tubing” river parties. In VV, is a huge backpacker scene where you rent intertubes and party down the Nam Song River. Riverside bars and “activities” – such as rope swings and a “slide of death” – create a raucous, Bacchanalian spectacle.

Our day started off innocuous enough, with a quick flight from SR to Pakse to Vientiene, the former French colonial capital of Laos. From Vientiene, there is a minibus service that will drive you to VV through the mountains for around $90. We met 4 other travelers (two English girls – Milly and Charlotte – and a pair of guys, Paul from England and Pat from Sydney) at the airport who were going the same way and decided to split one of the minibuses.

The first two hours were smooth sailing, with everyone in the bus getting along and carrying on like old friends. We joked about Frank’s lack of travel insurance, and the fact that we were all going to get pink eye from the river water according to Lonely Planet and various internet forums. The drive up through the mountains was quite picturesque, with random waterfalls peaking out here and there near the road, and with lazy villages and farms breaking up the otherwise undeveloped highway. It was at this point that our minibus started to slow down. Something was happening just around the corner that was causing the cars in front of us to slow. As we pulled into the village we saw it: there was a 100 meter, waist-deep muddy river crossing the road.

Local children had stationed canoes at the roadside to ferry people across. A few brave souls were tying garbage bags over their exhaust and recruiting help from other locals to push the vehicles across. Our minibus driver was having none of it, and refused to attempt to cross the river. We all piled out with our bag, and found a local who spoke enough English to tell us that there was a local bus that ran to VV from there, and that it may be there anytime between 30 minutes and an hour and 30 minutes. Given that there was another local bus stopped on our side, that was making no movement towards crossing the river, we had our doubts that said bus would even get us to our final destination.

Frank, my favorite little problem solver, went out in search of an alternative means of transportation. Somehow, he flagged down a local with a small pickup truck (TIL the British call such vehicles “utes”) that would take us the final 40 km in the bed of his truck for $20, plus a little extra to pay 5 Lao dudes to push us across. We all piled in, stacked our packs up on top of things in case the bed flooded, and miraculously made it across. I now fully grasp the Oregon Trail context of the option to “caulk the wagon and attempt to ford the river.”

We continued on our way, bumping and speeding down the windy mountain road and high fiving at our ingenuity and good fortune and how great of a story we would have for our fellow travelers and friends back home.

We carried along like that for about 15 minutes, when we spotted the second flood crossing the road, this time with a noticeable lack of helpful locals that could be recruited to push us across. So, desperate times, desperate measures, the boys volunteered to unload and push us across, while the girls minded the bags precariously perched on the roof of the cab, losing and recovering several flip flops along the way.

On the other side we met some other “falang” (foreigners) who informed us there were 3 more such rivers between that point and Vang Vieng, included one so deep no vehicle could get through, necessitating a detour around “The Old Cement Factory,” which sounded like something straight out of Scoobi Doo, and that the road to Luang Prabang had suffered dozens of mudslides and was likewise impassable for the time being (it's cool, Frank and I had two days before we had to make that journey).

Long story short, the boys push us through us through two more of the rivers, much to the entertainment of every local that sees us along the way. By this time our driver is realizing he’s gotten himself into much more than he’d bargained for, and is speeding quite recklessly through the mountains of Lao, paying no mind to large potholes or any of the fauna lying precariously across the road. This fauna included just about every farm animal imaginable except for sheep and donkeys, including: cows, water buffalo, chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, piggies, goats, and I’m sure a couple others I’ve forgotten to mention. What a safari.

It’s at this point that Frankie hears it: puddup puddup puddup… Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the truck has a flat tire. Nightmare. Against my poorly rationalized protests (“dude, don’t tell him to stop, we’ll be fine, let’s just get there already”), Frank alerted the driver and we pulled over, only to find the single spare to be likewise flat. Needless to say, morale was at an all-time low by this point. The driver of the truck was attempting to switch one of the two “good” left side rear tires with one of the two completely flat right side tires (2 tires were on each side in the rear) when Frank decided it was probably easiest to flag down another truck to take us the remaining 10 km to our destination. This thankfully was quickly accomplished and we continued on our way.

Look, the Old Cement Factory! Ironically signposted with “Safety First.”

Finally, we made it to Vang Vieng, only to find out immediately from fellow backpackers that tubing had been canceled for the past 3 days due to the incredible 10-foot flooding (some described it as a 20-year flood) that had turned the normally lazy river an absolute death current and washed every single riverside bar off its foundation. Ah well, you win some, you lose some. We eventually found a nice hotel that was offering an incredible discount on agoda.com and celebrated surviving the journey with delicious cocktails.

Whatever you do, please don't tell my Mom I did that.