Here I am back in Luang Prabang, after extending my stay in Vang Vieng a whole 3 days longer than I thought. I will admit that at first I did not like Vang Vieng. The party scene there appeared to me to have this negative connotation from having read so many negative reviews from travellers who just could not get into it. And though I had a hard time with some of the aspects of it, I ended up falling in love with it. And I can’t even really explain why.

The tourism in Laos holds all of the qualities that the people of Laos do, that is, they don’t give a fuck. And it’s great! Everything is lazily slapped together and then, boom you got yourself a business. The shopkeepers, tuk tuk drivers and sandwich ladies, though at first I was put off by their immediate calls out to you once you walk by. This might seem like they are harassing you, but really they are just asking if you want anything, and if you say no and walk away, they don’t really care.

The river in which hordes of tourists died, is the slowest, laziest river I have ever seen. You can barely sit in it in most places, and I could tell by the waterline on the side that even in wet season it doesn’t get too crazy. It is ridiculous to think that so many people died on it, but I guess that’s probably more because the readily available free whiskeyvat bars and such.

I got over the impact of the tourism that is seen in he multitude of guesthouses, the row of sandwich ladies (a row of about 10 women with food stalls selling the same thing; sandwiches, burgers and fruitshakes), and the prominence of one particularly distasteful bar that everyone goes to (sakura bar), and saw the charm of Vang Vieng.

That being said I did not get to experience this town before it had this massive impact of tourism, in which it was probably much better (same attitude, but less over the top tourist stuff), but I believe in the people of Laos and I hope they can continue to develop this part of the country and other parts without losing their charm.

Also, I wanted to note an FYI, all of my pictures have grey skies and I was thinking that the general public is not aware of why. This is because it is dry season here and that means farmers are busy burning the old fields to get ready to start planting for the rainy season. This means that the whole time I have been in SE Asia, the sky is covered in a grey haze that prevents you from seeing the blue sky, most stars, and the beautiful scenery. This is likely to change as Pi Mai (or Songkran in Thailand) marks the end of the dry season and it should change to wet here pretty soon.

Here are some highlights from the past few days:

I walked to a waterfall with a Dutch girl and we were the only ones there, also there were tons of butterflies that just flew around us! So cool:

There are many places one can just go and sit in or near the river and just relax

Tubing was actually lots of fun, and with beautiful scenery

Sandwich ladies in the night