Vang Vieng is surrounded by limestone karsts and there are incredible views from everywhere in town. It became really popular several years ago for tubing and drinking Beer Lao at bars along the Nam Xong river, but the government closed many of the bars down in late 2012 because of the high number of deaths and injuries. There are still a few bars open and you can see tuk tuks with tubes piled high on their roofs dropping off rowdy bunches of "young uns " in the early evening downtown. It's amusing enough to see them stumble around with their friends deciding which way to go, but even more amusing to see them nursing a smoothie for hours the next day around 1 in the afternoon with a zombie look on their faces. They don't talk to each other, just stare into space or lie down. Overall though, there seems to be more of a focus on the mountain biking, cave exploring, hiking, kayaking as well as the tubing.
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| The View. |
We rented bikes one day and decided to go cave exploring. Soon after heading out on the very bumpy road, we were sorry we hadn't rented the mountain bikes. Regardless, we made it there in style, as you can see in the picture below.
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| Hot pink is the fastest color and the basket just enhances the aerodynamics... according to Jamie, anyway |
We were greeted by this beautiful lagoon where a few people were swimming, but most were sunbathing or having a bite to eat. Who wouldn't want to linger here?
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| The lagoon at the Tham Phu Kham Cave |
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| Contemplating jumping in? |
This cave has a lying Buddha in the entrance which was neat, but we had brought our little flashlights and were bet and bound on going cave exploring. Once we hit the darkness, we figured out that we could have used something that shed a little more light. After our eyes got a bit more accustomed to the dark, (and a few bumps and bruises later), we made our way further into the cave. We took a lot of pictures as the flash revealed so much more around us. We only came across 3 other people inside and it really felt like a bit of the "journey to the centre of the earth".
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| On the edge of darkness looking at the mouth of the cave |
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| Wow, the flash worked well! |
We also signed up for a hiking, cave tubing and kayaking full day of excitement. Sounds like fun right? Well, somebody forgot to tell us that the water in this cave, especially at this time of year, is absolutely freezing...like hypothermia freezing. The nice thing is that they hurry you into the water with a whole bunch of people and you don't have a chance to turn back. They plop you into a tube and push you towards the cave telling you to hold onto the rope. Everyone's screaming and laughing and we figured that it would only be for a few minutes...well 40 minutes later we're finally standing by a fire on the shore trying to get some blood back in our hands,butts and feet. Brrrrrrr! Did I mention you have to get out of your inner tube at one point and walk hip deep in freezing cold water to the next rope? We both agree that the cave was cool, but now that we've "been there and done that" we won't be signing up again. After sitting in the warm sun to eat lunch, we headed out in kayaks for the afternoon. The river is low right now, so sometimes we had to go single file around little rapids and it was a really good time. Our guides hammed it up and had our group laughing most of the afternoon.
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| Entrance to freezing water cave |
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| Great view kayaking |
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| Local fisherman on Nam Xong river |
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| Young boy digging for clams |
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| View from my hammock while having a drink at a riverside bar |
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| Our group pulling in for a break |
Here's one last video from our favourite place to eat in Vang Vieng. It has a great sunset view and later in the evening you can watch Friends reruns for hours while you sip a smoothie and use their WiFi.
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| Best way to end the day |
