I was there 2 years ago, its a beautiful place. One of my fav in Laos. Shame it will be remember in years to come by those incidents.
Oh man I really loved Laos, I'd be interested in knowing about some other beautiful there. I went to Vang Vieng, did the tubing, left the food area half a hour before the cops rolled ~80 euros for $200usd. I could go on, that was a very strange first 24hrs. Best bit was riding out to some hill, having lunch and looking at a cave.
I met some sketchy characters there though and I can't blame them for shutting it down, free local booze+ cheap booze+ river+ high rope jumps definitely led to some injuries.
That was quite a different thing to the Koh Phangan full moon parties. Though they both featured young western tourists drinking a bit much.