A Peoples' History of Vang Vieng (A work of Historical Fiction)

One day in the nineteen teens, James Thompson was cruising in his Model T scoping out a piece of land along the Colorado river looking for the perfect place to put up a new Dam for his energy company when suddenly he struck a pot hole. Just like modern SUVs the T had a flipping problem. This safety issue was compounded by the fact that seat belts were never widely used by the Ford Company until years later when Robert McNamara's brilliant mind came to work for them, the same mind that was encapsulated by the human body that was the Secretary of State that planned and carried out the secret war the US lead agaist Laos making it the most heavily bombed country in the world. When he struck the pot hole poor James found himself soaring through the air and landed in the Colorado river. Fortunately for James, who never learned to swim, in a moment of extreme improbability, one of the rubber tires landed with its hole surrounding his head, and the rubber encompassing his body, looking like the perfect lifeguard life buouy toss. In-turn Jimmy grabbed hold for dear life. Now, not only was James life spared, but he found he was having quite the chill, pleasurable, and relaxed time being taken down the gently rapid river under the warm sun.

Mr. Thompson would soon share this discovery of the tube float that he really rather enjoyed with his colleagues and loved ones and pretty soon little pockets of tubers were showing up along the Colorado river in the various tamer sections. Tubers started coming out in ever increading numbers along the river. The newly discovered activity found its way over to the Mississippi, the Rio, the Amazon, the Niger, the Congo, the Nile, and pretty soon the Mekong, the Nam Song, and now the Nam Song river at its crossraods with the town of VangVieng.

Aside from the waxing and waning of the Nam Song's water level as the seasons change every six months from wet and damn hot to dry and scorching, all was basic, standard, and calm in this town for many years. Then in 1989 the Laos border opened itself up to toursits. Lying just a four hour bus ride to the North of the capital of Vientiene, and dug in amonst a series of mountains, cliffs, and caves that submerge in a beautiful eerie mist during the earlier part of the year, and the Nam Ou river, made Vang Vieng an accessible and attractive destination. It didn't take long before the first few caucasian tourists stumbled upon it. When they came to the river to cool off from the ridiculous climate god has chosen for this area of the world, the local Laos tubers offered the visitors the oppurtunity to share in this great experience and lent their tubes out. As the 80s became the 90s a Laos enterpanuer saw his chance to make some serious kip and opened up a tube rental business which started to turn quite the profit. The market realized this causing numerous tube-rental companies to follow suit. The river banks began to fill with barbecues and picnics and with it came leisurely drinking. As the mid 90s approached an executive from Beer Laos, the nation's largest export, visited the town and was horrified to see that while people were drinking, none of them were really drunk, and that needed fixing. Beer Laos soon launched a relentless marketting campaign to ensure that every tuber would not be able to complete a float down this river without totally forgetting the practice of swimming. Coolers transformed into bamboo bars.

By the turn of the Millenium Vang Vieng had overgone a complete makeover. The Laos tourism department soon figured out that if caucasians are to make it over this way, there will need to be countless intrnet cafes, guest houses, and resteraunts and bars that serve wood fired pizza, sticky rice, and beef laap, and play episodes of friends and Family Guy on repeat interspersed with occasional movies all with plots like "The day After Tomorrow." Beer Laos would no longer suffice, there would have to be Captain Morgan available both on and off the river, and music, lots of music that Americans love. They figured out from the Thais that what all of us backpacker types love is that one song "Country Roads" and anything and everything with a heavy bass. What was once a quiet little villiage was now a battle for the airwaves between Eminem and P-Ditty.

By 2002 travllers had spread the word of spontaneous frat-like parties in Vang Vieng on the sides of the Nam Song river with huge swings to launch off of into the refrehing water that only, very occasionally, lead to serious injury. The bamboo bars added to their list of amenities volleyball courts, pool tables, ping pong, french or freedom fries, and a badmitton court in case a local actually showed up. There was only one thing missing that the "farmers" picked up on very quickly as soon as they got their eyes of the number of dreadlocked travellers that came crawling through town. To keep everything legal the goods were dealt to the resteraunts who now began expanding their menu to the special grilled cheese, the special toast, and the special Chocolate Chip cookie. Or if one is feeling a bit more hard core, and wants the already spectacular mountains, river, and cute Laos children everywhere to be graced by angels, fairies, and lucy in the sky with diamonds, there are the happy shakes, happy pizzas, and happy teas. In this way now instead of just tubing down a river, as Mr. James Thompson once did nearly a century ago, which sounds cool but has more potential, now you can tube down this stretch of river with a beer in one hand, a whisky in the other, stoned from breakfast, hallucinating from lunch, and hung over from dinner, while listening to Britney Spears say "Hit me Baby one more time" but not before she is rudely interrupted by eminem's My Fault with the lyrics sreaming "I never meant to give you mushrooms girl, I never meant to bring you to my world."