Unlike the rest of Southeast Asia where one can buy an alcoholic drink and consume it walking down the street, Hong Kong has a no open container law. This made things difficult when Carrie, Karen, Ben, Michelle and I just wanted to grab a quick beer from 7-Eleven and drink it as we wandered around looking for a club. However, as we looked around the store we saw that there were around a dozen other locals, Indians and Africans hanging out and drinking…it was the thing to do I guess.
Finding drinking in 7-Eleven highly amusing, we grabbed a few beers of our own and joined the fun. Within an hour of socalizing, our group had added a pair Australians and a Hong Kong resident from Nigeria named James. Based on our requests, it quickly became James’ mission to take us to a club and show us around his town. After taking us to a few that were completely closed or dead, we found ourselves going downstairs to what seemed like a good place. However, we quickly looked around and realized that it was, in fact, a brothel. The quote of the night came from one of the Aussie guys who said, “um, we definitely need to leave here. Immediately.”
A night on the town in Kowloon with our new friends that we picked up while partying at the local 7-Eleven
Finally, we found ourselves in a real and nice club in Kowloon and proceeded to dance and hang out until nearly 4am. Surrounded by locals, they all took turns trying to show off their dance moves for us. A classic evening in the world of travel.
On a different note, the club also gave me a disturbing insight into the racial divide in Hong Kong. James and I were the first to arrive and he quickly went over to talk to the bouncer and get us in for free. At first, the bouncer wanted nothing to do with James and basically shooed him away like a peasant trying to enter a palace. However, as soon as the rest of the group of Westerners came around the corner the scene changed. All of a sudden the bouncer was shaking James’ hand and leading us in with his arm around James’ shoulder. Racism at its finest.
A rainbow over the restaurant and bar-filled streets of Vang Vieng
I’ll admit it; Vang Vieng sucked us in. We came to the city for a lazy inner tube ride down the river, as advertised in our guide book, and figured we’d be there for a day or two max. However, upon arrival we were greeted by streets filled with rows of bars and restaurants: most of which have TVs going 24/7 playing Friends, Family Guy or The Simpsons. Catering entirely to western tourists, these places have low tables, comfortable mattresses and pillows to recline on. The food is average, but after the sixth episode of Friends in a row it doesn’t seem to matter.
Instead of a quick stop, we wound up spending four days relaxing, drifting from restaurant to restaurant, taking in marathon TV sessions while waiting out monsoon rains, surfing the Web and sleeping in. We were also reunited with Claire, who we had been in Malaysia and the Full Moon Party with, as well as her friend Ellen. It was with these two that we set forth on the adventure known as tubing in Vang Vieng.
Anything but a lazy ride down the river, tubing would better be described as spring break for late teens and early 20s kids from Australia and Europe. The goal is to visit a series of bars, all very close to each other, while swinging off of high platforms into the water and partying with fellow travelers. In fact, a tube is not needed at all. A tuk tuk drops tubers off at a row of three bars connected to the mainland. After that there are dozens of other bars, all accessible by water. Were bars not involved, the total tubing time would be at most 30 minutes. In reality though, those who rent tubes spent about five minutes total in them. Knowing this, we opted to swim.
One of the swings used to drop into the river
Each of the first three bars has a rope swing with some sort of rollers attached that tubers line up to use. The process is simple: climb up, hold on and jump off. Some allow you to hold on indefinitely, swinging back and forth until you are ready to let go and fall into the water. Others are just a straight line and, if you haven’t let go before the rollers hit the stopping point, your entire body is catapulted forward. While all swings can be done solo, a few of them allow two participants to go at once. Carrie and I tried this once but didn’t make it too far before both falling into the water.
After finishing up at the first three locations, tubers can finally toss their rings into the water to float for less than a minute to the next bar. As we had been told that the tubes were pointless, we jumped into the water and swam. Things got a little scary for a minute for me when the river split around a little rocky island. A mix of the strong current and my lack of strong swimming skills pulled me to the far away side while Carrie was safely at the shore of the next bar. I clamored for the rocks of the island and finally, grabbing onto branches dirt, was able to pull myself out of the water. Barefoot, I hobbled across the island and jumped back in before the guys on the shore tossed out a soda bottle on a rope to pull me in. Not my favorite part of the day.
The local bus stop in Vang Viang
Safely back on land, the main activity of the fourth stop was two mud water pits where everyone spent hours wrestling, jumping in and basically acting like big kids. This was my favorite spot of the day and we spent so much time there that by the time we swam to the fifth place it was dark and time to take a tuk tuk home. After my troubles with the water in the day, a night time swim did not interest me at all.
While we thoroughly enjoyed our day of “tubing,” one day was more than enough. The same can not be said for many other people there who were on their fourth, fifth, sixtieth or even hundredth day of tubing in a row. It’s almost like a mini-cult, and repeat tubers have their consecutive day number proudly written in Sharpie on their arm.
I hate to say it, but Carrie and I found ourselves wondering how much longer we could even do things like this without being dubbed “the old people in the corner.” Most tubers were in their late teens and low 20s. True, there there were plenty of other folks on the other side of the age spectrum but we were definitely outnumbered.
Monsoon rains were a daily occurrence, like this one I filmed while watching Friends and keeping dry
Imagine a beach with a few hundred feet between the water and a row of bars roughly a quarter mile long. Each bar is blasting music at concert volumes and selling buckets full of alcohol to anyone regardless of age or level of intoxication. Add some blacklights, body painting, glow in the dark items, food stalls and stages for people to dance on. Now put 10,000 people on the beach and see what happens.
While many revelers arrive on the day of the party, we got to Koh Phangan a day early so we would have time to check it all out before the madness began. After waking up in the late afternoon on our first day we wandered around and saw everyone setting up. That evening we attended a pool party next door to our hotel that was filled with a combination of people having a great time horsing around in the pool and others dancing on the dance floor. A wild scene unlike anything I’ve seen before, but as we were not in bathing suits or dancing, it was time to check out the beach.
Even though it was a warm-up night, there were still a few thousand people dancing away on the beach. The music was great, though it was a bit hard to hear at times as the bars are all right next to each other and the different songs mix together. As for the selection it was mostly trance, techno and an occasional hip hop song.
Over the course of the night our group was both together and separated, but every time we saw each other it was like finding a long lost friend in the crowd. At around 5am a flaming jump rope came out and we had a blast watching the drunks try and play. Carrie and I spent the night and early morning dancing our hearts out until the sun came up over the ocean behind us and they shut the music off. By the time we finally made it home it was past 7am.. Quite a warm-up.
While we all slept until 5pm the island underwent a transformation. People arrived in packs, every local was out selling something and the island felt positively electric. Tonight there was no pool party, no other activities…just the beach. The sky was clear, the moon full, the music blasting and we were ready to go!
Upon arriving at the beach the first thing we noticed was a huge police presence that was lacking the night before. There was also a “sleep area” where people who had a little too much fun could go and be kept safe by the on-site medical staff. It was good to see that precautions were being taken, as we had heard horror stories about full moon parties in the past.
Carrie shows off her glow in the dark tattoo in front of a wall filled with all of the options one could get painted on them
For those not needing police or medical attention, there were rows of stalls with blacklight body paint. Each one had pretty much the same designs, which they would paint on you for a price. The beach was also filled with people selling glow in the dark bracelets, hats, glasses and necklaces. Pretty much everyone on the beach had some sort of neon aspect to them. Mine was a bright green neon stick around my wrist.
Food stalls were set up all over the beach and taxi speedboats were waiting to take people to private parties on yachts anchored just off shore. Countless people were out in the water swimming, sitting, standing or laying down in one of the boats foolish enough to park there for the night. Pretty much everyone had a bucket of booze.
The actual party was the same as the night before: just about five times bigger. Pretty much the entire beach was filled with people dancing, talking, walking around, flirting and having a great time. There were fire dancers, people blowing fire, guys and girls spinning fire and, of course, more fire jump rope.
When sunrise finally came, there were tons more people on the beach than the day before. The music also never stopped. While we went back to the room around 7:30am, we met people who were dancing until nearly 3pm. Crazy!
Carrie and I in front of a full moon sunrise
So is it the greatest, biggest and best party in the world? That’s what they say and I do see some merit in the statement. The beach layout is great and gives people a large area to do things without having everything too spread out. Even with 10,000 people there is still room to move around.
At the same time, the closeness of the bars gets a bit old when the music mixes together. Also, if dancing the night away isn’t your thing then this is not the place to be. I feel like the best party in the world would have more options. For now I’ll label it a pretty awesome party and revisit the statement when I go to more of the “best parties in the world.”
