This isn’t a list of taboos to avoid when visiting Laos but a lesson that sometimes the best thing to do when traveling is to not do anything. One of my favorite quotes from the movie Office Space is “I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I’d hoped it could be.” Laos in general, and Vang Vieng specifically, is a place to fall into doing absolutely nothing.
Upon my arrival in Vang Vieng, I felt a tinge of regret. As I looked up and down the street in front of my hotel, there was nothing going on. It was a stark contrast to the lively atmosphere in Luang Prabang, the place I’d just left. I wondered why I’d booked more time here than in the former, but somehow I remembered Vang Vieng to be the place to spend more time. It would take me a couple days to remember why.
In fact I was so discouraged that I immediately began to consider options for getting out of there. I could return to Luang Prabang, but I’d still have to pay for my hotel for the week. Granted, it was only $20 per night, and I will readily take a loss of money for a gain in experience.
The other option was to move on to the next town from which I could fly to Hong Kong, my next destination. Hong Kong is expensive though, and in addition to paying for my unused hotel, I’d have the added expense of paying $45/night for a hostel. That didn’t include all the expenses for changing my plane ticket either.
The last option was to stay in the capital of Vientiane, the city from which my flight to Hong Kong departed, but that is one place I remembered to never spend more time in than you had to. After an evening researching how to abort my visit to Vang Vieng, I decided to sleep on it. The morning presented an option I hadn’t considered.
Despite having a stunning view, my hotel had no extra amenities, including coffee, so I headed down the block to a coffee shop I’d seen the night before. As I mentioned in a previous post, coffee is one of the delightful legacies that the French left behind when they abandoned their colony. This was a modern coffee shop with an all glass facade and a vaulted ceiling.
I had intended to bring the coffee back to my room and enjoy it while I did some writing, but the barista served it to me in a ceramic cup. I hadn’t thought to tell her it was “to go” since post-Covid, every coffee shop has been serving in disposable cups whether you drink it in house or not. In this case, I was forced to slow down, sit, and enjoy my coffee.
I welcomed the chance to take in my surroundings and watch the people walking by as the day started. I tried to remember the last time I sat in a coffee shop and drank from a cup with the hard smooth surface of glazed clay. Ironically, as I sipped a drink intended for stimulation, I began to relax. My time in Vang Vieng was a journey into doing nothing, and I eventually realized that this was the feeling that prompted me to schedule a week here.
On the plus side, with no bars, shopping malls or other diversions, there is nothing to spend your money on. It reinforces my belief that one of the easiest ways to get rich is to not spend money. The bigger value, however, is that Laos forces you into being instead of doing. Instead of distracting yourself with things, you allow the things already around you to provide the entertainment.
For example, later that same day I tried to hike to an overlook I’d seen on the edge of town. After several attempts to figure a way up the cliff, I gave up. Laos had forced me to stop being active and rewarded me when I got back to the main road. Across the street was a riverside restaurant I’d seen the day before. I walked down the steps to the floating platform and ordered some food.
I noticed there were innertubes tied to the edge of the dock, and I decided to climb into one and float while I waited for my lunch to be prepared. As I gazed out over the river, I was startled by a dragonfly that landed on my toe. My first reaction was to pull my foot into the water, but that only made it levitate until I put my foot back where it was and the dragonfly again landed on my toe. I couldn’t help but marvel at the number of ways Laos forced you to relax.
Because I was on the water, I had decided to order fish, and it was probably the best I’d ever tasted. They cut it into bite sized chunks which were crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. It seemed like they poached it and then fried it.
As I ate my lunch, a wave of saffron caught my eye, and I glanced over to see several boy monks wading across the river. I was grateful that I wasn’t looking at my phone, something I typically do while eating. Instead, I was left to ponder the age-old question, “why did the monks cross the river?”
In this case, the answer to the riddle was “to get to the rope swing” The next time I looked up from my meal, I saw the saffron shrouded boys gliding in arcs over the water until they released the rope and plunged into the river with screams of delight. I made an effort to document their mirth from my table, but they were too far away, so I decided to trod upriver to get a better view.
The server at my restaurant seemed to take no notice of my departure, though I had left my bag behind to communicate that I would return. Walking the shallow edge of the river was challenging in flip flops, and there were times that the murky bottom tried to steal the footwear I’d just planted upon its surface.
Eventually I made it to the boys, but the sun had moved behind the tree with the rope swing, and the boys were now in the shade. I snapped what photos I could though they’d lost the earlier glow that the sun had produced when it was shining upon them. I was forced once again by this magical country to simply enjoy and not do.
After watching them play, I headed back to the restaurant and paid my bill. It had been such a relaxing experience that I dreaded the tedious walk home in the sun. It’s like when you go for a massage and then you have to drive home in traffic. Perhaps it was because I’d spent the last hour watching boats, monks and kayaks float past, that I wondered whether I could also float back to town.
When I went to pay my bill, I asked for a plastic bag. I put all my water averse things inside it and lowered myself from the dock into the river. Having listened to dozens of rafting safety talks over the years, I knew to float downstream with my feet forward. I used one hand to steer and keep me afloat while the other held the plastic back on top of my head, and I was quite pleased with myself for having devised a way to get home without walking. It was about then I saw the rapids.
I’d passed through them the day before, and they weren’t very big when viewed from inside a kayak, but they were big enough to splash over my head since my body was lower in the river than a kayak. I wasn’t concerned so much for my immediate safety, as I’m a good swimmer, but for the amount of water I swallowed. I imagined that the water is Laos was probably rich with parasites, and I feared how my body might react to the introduction of these aliens into my digestive tract. I made a mental note to remind myself two days later why I might be suffering from diarrhea.
Once through the rapids, I glanced over and saw an empty 2 liter bottle floating down river next to me. I reached out and grabbed it and stuffed it into the backpack. Holding the backpack to my chest, I immediately noticed my increased buoyancy. I must have looked quite the site floating down river with my hat soaked and my arms wrapped around my backpack because the next group of kayakers asked me if I was okay. I assured them I did not need a resume, but just a short distance further, I found something that did need a rescue.
Further along the shore I saw the boy monks from earlier gathered on a large piece of concrete that had broken away from the embankment. They were now jumping off the concrete into the river. One boy was climbing up out of the water when I heard the whining of a dog. I visually assessed its location and realized that it had somehow gotten down the sheer piece of concrete and couldn’t figure out a way to get back up.
I swam to the edge of the concrete block and pulled myself out of the water. I walked along a narrow ledge to find the dog cowered beneath an overhang but still whimpering. I tried to coax it to me, but eventually I had to go to it.
You’ve probably seen those videos where animals, that would typically bolt from humans, seem resigned to their touch when trapped in some precarious situation. Such was the case with the dog. Most likely a stray who would have shied away or growled at me if I approached it on the street, it seemed to understand as I wrapped my arms around its mid-section.
I carried it back out to the ledge and called up to one of the boy monks who’d been watching me curiously. When one of them came to the ledge above me, I handed the dog over my head to him. He pulled the dog up and placed it on the ground. The monk turned back, said thank you to me, and walked away. I dropped back into the river and continued my float downriver without further incident.
As I approached my hotel, I made my way towards the shore. There were several boats lined up on the gravel, and I had to avoid their propellers sticking into the water. When my feet touched the ground, and I emerged from the water, I must have resembled a cat being removed from a bath, but the boaters didn’t give me a second glance.
I looked back up the river, delighted at the creative way I’d avoided the long walk home in the heat. I was grateful for the aborted hike that steered me to my lunch spot and the wonderful fish I’d enjoyed. As I looked back into the water in front of me, I said to myself, “well, you really are what you eat”.
That day became the model for the rest of my week in Vang Vieng, and I planned very little activity. I’d learned to let things happen around me. I just hope I can remember the lessons when I leave Laos.