Whenever you tell somebody you're going to Laos you'll get the response "Laos is awesome, you must go to Vang Vieng and do tubing". After reading stuff like "husband died in tubing tragedy" and "tubing is fun, but take care, many people die every year" we were not to tempted anymore. But since Vang Vieng is basically all about tubing we decided we couldn't leave without at least trying once.
Doing tubing is basically like going on a massive pub crawl. You rent a tube, get dropped off on the top of the river and left to float down in your own pace. Along the way there are maybe 20 different bars on each side, and it's up to you to decide on which and how many you stop and have a drink at. Some people we spoke to said they only made it as far as to the second bar before sunset. Some others stopped at three or four and instead of getting pissed, enjoyed floating around the river and look at the stunning view over the mountains.
We did something in between and together with a British couple managed about six bars. When you were tired of just floating around, you just had to give the bar staff a wink and somebody would throw you a roap and drag you in (we all started to feel a bit like fish). On some of the bars they had slides and ziplines, other had a nice rooftop there you could stay and sunbath for a while. When the sun set behind the mountains and we were still paddling to reach the final stop, we decided to give up and get a tuk tuk back to town. It had gotten way to chilly and our arms was sore from all the paddling.
Think I speak for the both of us when I say tubing was a lot of fun, and not at all dangerous if you have just a tiny bit if common sense.
