Wow! Vang Vieng is a serious party town!

Arrived at 9pm into Oh La La bar where 23 people (yes 23!) were playing killer pool. The rules were clearly designed to get patrons drunk: miss a shot and down a whisky; pot a ball and down a whisky; win the game for a crate of beer and whisky!! Vang Vieng is all about drinking and partying.

The main reason, probably the only reason, to take the trouble to get to Vang Vieng, is actually for a day time event and not a night time one. The town is infamous for riding down river on an inner tube and popping into the riverside bars along the way. See a bar you like, tube in, have some drinks and enjoy the music and dancing, tube out. As the day progresses and alcohol consumption increases, tubers start using the high diving boards, death slides and rope swings to enter the water in spectacular fashion. Just be careful of the unmarked underwater rocks!

Despite there being more than 10 bars down the river, it seems that 90% of all revellers stick to just the first three bars. This being in part due to the fact that an inner tube is not needed to visit them and because the other bars are not being promoted effectively. It’s a shame that tubing is going out of the window in favour of the first 3 bars and I hope that the downstream bars up their game to bring tubing back into fashion.

At the end of the tubing day, Vang Vieng’s nightlife comes alive. The order of play seemed to be Oh La La Bar, Q Bar and then Sunset Bar. These places have established themselves as the best circuit and are promoted during the day at bars 1, 2 and 3 on the river. I imagine they are all owned by the same person.

As with all bars in Laos, 11.30pm is closing time so it is not advisable to sleep after a hard days tubing as you don’t have time to get back out before everything closes down. This results in days merging into nights and drinking sessions lasting from 1pm ish to 11pm ish every day. There is little else to do in Vang Vieng and that is what the majority of people are there for. It’s a great place if you are mad for it.