One happy pizza, please

I'm in Vang Vieng which is fun, but as far as I'm concerned is a ruined place. I"m sure it was once a beautiful town by the mountains but has been turned into a party spot for drunk westerners. There are nothing but guesthouses, restaurants, and vendors selling sandwiches and pancakes (actually rotti, more like a crepe than a pancake).

One of the biggest attractions in this town is tubing. What I imagined this was to be floating down the river in an innertube. The reality is renting an overpriced innertube, floating down the river for 20 meters and being pulled into a bar on the river. Here there are lots of booze and drugs. They also have massive swings that are fun and terribly unsafe. I jumped into the river from the swing and landed directly flat on my back which was terribly painful. One friend came out of the water coughing blood. Another guy had to go home. There are free shots of lao lao (rice whiskey) to be had at your convenience. Then you get back in the tube and float another 20 meters and do it again.

The whole thing is really such a scam. You have to put a deposit on the innertube that you get back upon return. At the last bar along the river a guy from the rental place comes and steals tons of tubes so that many people won't have one and will have to forfeit their deposit. At this point they are all too drunk to care. They also ask that you return the tubes by a certain time but everybody has been so busy partying that they dont go down the river and end up having to take and overpriced tuktuk back from the river. The whole thing is complete madness but I think it was a pretty good time.

For some reason, in Vang Vieng, and only in Vang Vieng, there are tons of restaurants with seats in one direction, all facing two televisions playing Friends. I don't know why they play friends but they do. Walking down the street you see hoardes of falang (westerners) hypnotized by the sweet glow of friends. It also probably helps than many of these places serve "space pizza" which can be pretty conducive to watching tv.

There is no doubt that this is one of the most bizzare places in the world.