6 Americans, 1 Kiwi, 3 Dutch, 1 Latvian & 1 Italian

From Vangviang

Dingy raised bungalows with communal toilets and snoring neighbors are par for the course, but our day was about to turn around.

We all meet up to rent tubes and catch the few kilometer lift up the river. Now it's the rainy season so they say you can get down the river pretty quickly (1-hr or so / 2-hr in dry season) if you float straight through. They were right, when we pulled up the Mekong was flowing fast. Yes, tubing is fun, but the real reason people go is because there are about 12-15 bars along the way down. Most equipped with a flying fox (zip line) or trapeze swing into the water. Envision a 50-60 beam stretching out over the river with a trapeze swing off to one side, up in a tree loft or makeshift platform. AMAZING! So we all plopped into the water and 50 meters later is the first bar. We immediately go off the swing and grab a beer. A few bars later people are going off tandem and trying backflips. Sus even hurled herself a couple times into the turbulent chocolate colored waters of the Mekong! By the last bar we were making the backflips and swinging three at a time! (One of our other American friends took pictures. I pray that he forwards them on to us.) The river wasn't really crowded that day so we formed, with a few other stragglers, forming the loudest/ most fun crew out there. Which brought our total to 12 (6 Americans, 1 Kiwi, 3 Dutch, 1 Latvian & 1 Italian.) We returned our tubes around dusk and met up to eat later that night. An brilliant day with new friends I'll never forget.