Vang Vieng: Heaven and Hell

While the landscape in this region is a heavenly paradise, the town of Vang Vieng is surreal, and not entirely in a good way. Is is a small town that has become saturated with tourist infrastructure: guesthouses, restaurants, internet cafe's. Also, the Lonely Planet mockingly mentioned in passing the endless episodes of Friends playing in the bars. When reading a remark like this, we kind of thought this was one of the writer's jaded impressions of the place. But it's not. It's literally true. There are a half dozen bars, one beside the other, continuously playing episodes of Friends. Hell isn't necessarily fire and brimstone. Just imagine being chained to one of the chairs in these pubs for all eternity.

Of course, it's not a stretch to see how this could have happened. Probably at the time the first bars here were getting satellite TV, Friends was probably at the height of its popularity. So some bar owner switched it on, drew a good crowd, and made some good money selling drinks. Eager to get in on the action, everyone else followed suit. And of course, once you have success, you don't mess with it; in the years since, no one has dared change the dial, for fear of losing a day's business. It's just unimaginable that no one has the entrepreneurial daring to actually try playing something else. Of course, at this point, it's so cheesy, it's become a cliche unto itself.