By: Lindsay Hogg
Pink Eye and Buy 2, Get 1 Free BUCKETS!
“You’re going to die in Vang Vieng Hogga”
“What? why?”
“You’ll see”
For the record, all my friends call me Hogga, in case u were too slow to catch onto that…
Why did my friend assume I was going to die in Vang Vieng?
A) I like to drink
B) I’m accident prone
C) Every year, drunk tourists get severely hurt, some even die in Vang Vieng
When I found out what actually goes on on Vang Vieng I was like a little kid who’s parents just told her she’s going to Disneyland.
Vang Vieng is like an amusement park for people who like to drink. You get a tube, or choose to float and make your way down the Nam Song River, stopping at all the bars along the way to get some sweet ass drinks (that come in bucket size).
They have all kinds of drinking games and contests, not to mention TON of free shots. Are you beginning to understand why this place is my Disneyland? Christ, if you told me there was free shots in a barn just a few minutes away I would be ecstatic.
The first new person I met arriving into town was a super drunk guy, who I believed had pink eye. I passed him off as a dirt bag who was possibly touching feces then poking himself in the eyeball. But I judged too soon…
The next day I hit up the river with some of my buddies I met in Pakse. When we got to the first bar I realized why many tourists get hurt. A few forms of high swings+cheap delicious alcohol may have something to do with it, but I’m no scientist… just a hypothesis. Thus, I hopped over to the bar and started with ‘buy 2 get 1 bucket free’ and avoided the swings because I didn’t want to prove my hypothesis. The voice in the back of my head saying “your going to die hogga”… may have helped also, it sounded like a ginger… Oh wait! It was a ginger, it was Lucy – also known as ‘stupid Lucy’ from previous ‘Around the World’ posts you may have read.
Just a side note: don’t try to walk and drink your 3 buckets… it gets messy!
Although I made it out of Vang Vieng alive without any broken or sprained body parts, I did manage to obtain bronchitis and conjunctivitis in both eyes. Yes, that dudes pink eye wasn’t from touching feces, it was from the river water (and with that being said, probably water, one shouldn’t swim in). Everyone from our group of 8 eventually got their share. It spread among us like a wild fire, as if our eyeballs were making out and spreading an STD. Hell, I know my eyeballs were innocent, so it must have been from too many sweet high fives and lack of hand washing.
16 Comments
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Iain Mallory, Lindsay Hogg. Lindsay Hogg said: Vang Vieng: Don't Touch Peoples Eyeballs —-> http://bit.ly/hD14JS #bars #bucket #conjunctivitis #Drink #Laos #rtwnow […]
Wow, the minute I saw the pic of the water I questioned it. When we went tubing this same time last year and the water was beautiful and clear. Not like that at all!!
Hope you get better soon!
haha yeah, I was the same. I AM NOT GOING IN THERE! But after a couple buckets I was all ‘yeeaaa lets DO IT ‘ swim swim swim…
:O <—–That was my face reading this post! I'm deathly afraid of pink eye for some reason lol.
HAHAHA…. ya it’s not too high on my top things to experience in this lifetime.
Yeah I could never go there, I´d definitely die.
Hogga where´s your new header!
haha I thought the same, but I made it through. Yes Yes the header is coming soon! I promise, I have to do some HTML coding to put it in = hard = procrastination
imagine how much pee is in that water…
hahah!???
I better get my party mood up before I hit this town. Missed it last time through.
Oh this looks sooooo fun! Except I have to agree with Dee on this one… I don’t think I would have gotten into that water. But you are right, after a gallon (or 5) of alcohol, you start thinking illogically!
Pink eye used to be my favorite disease to contract when I was a child because you didn’t feel bad and you could miss school (YES)
But now, it sucks. Especially with contacts and like… shit to do.
Haha good story! Join the club of clumsy people who attract accidents! I hurt myself all the time 😀
Hilarious! I’m glad you made it out of there without any broken bones. That’s all I kept thinking about when we were there. I grew up jumping off rocks into river water, but this is no river water I wanted to be jumping into. You can’t see the bottom and have no idea if there is rocks underneath. Maybe I wasn’t drunk enough…
HAHA… yeah I jumped in from the side, but never did the swings
I like the idea of floating down a river on a tube — maybe not that river though… and oh, replace beer with wine – then I’m down! :p
Sounds like a crazy place, sorry to hear about the pink eye though.