Vang Vieng is a really pretty place spread out along the Nam Song river and on the other side is miles of rice paddies and limestone karsts. This is the edge of Vang Vieng town from one of the rickety bridges that cross the river.
There are plenty of (cheap) places to stay, including the riverside bungalows that turn into ovens during the day
so we opted for a more modern place that, because it was concrete, stayed cool and had a wonderful view over the river and paddies. This is down river from our balcony
and this is up river!
The place was recently built and very clean but that didn’t stop the insects. We shared our bed every night with tiny red ants (once we’d worked out that they didn’t bite, it wasn’t so bad) and our room with an impossibly cute baby gecko and other assorted other bugs. The ants just wouldn’t go away but they were hoovered up by another red-coloured bug that came known affectionately as the “ant buster”, as he’d sit there and grab unsuspecting ants, suck the life out of them then spit them out with a big wiggle before moving on to his next victim (yes, you may think that we have been unemployed for too long but we beg to differ).
There are many rickety bridges that cross the river and this one had only just opened up again after the wet season
They’re surprisingly sturdy structures and looked like they’d weathered the high river more than a few times
These two were just down from where we were staying and you can see the bungalows on the other side. We were wondering (hoping) if building was now banned on the other side of the river but with a new guest house apparently going up ever 45 days we didn’t think that Vang Vieng would remain in its current state for very long.
Vang Vieng isn’t everyones cup of tea as it clearly used to be a quiet little town in a very pretty setting. Now its still a quiet town but filled with backpackers (most around 19-25 years old), has loads of bars that play repeats of the TV show ‘Friends’ (we thought someone was joking when they told us but they weren’t) and all places have vast menus offering standard Laos fare and other ‘stuff’ that’s not everyones cup of tea either! Regardless of this, it is a great place to stop and do activities such as caving, hiking, canoeing and tubing. Tubing is easily the most popular option judging by the number of tubes hired out each day. Basically, you hire a tractor inner tube (stupidly, it costs more to hire a tube than it does to hire a scooter for the day…. go figure), cram into a tuk-tuk and get taken upstream for about 4kms then jump in your tube and float back down to Vang Vieng.
Locals have essentially created a natural water park and one that is easily the most beautiful I’ve ever been in. It is just so relaxing, sitting in a tube, drifting down the river…. until you get coaxed into one of the bars that are dotted along the edge of the river. These are not just any old bars. These are platform-on-stilts affairs that have guys holding out bamboo poles for you can grab so they can pull you in. Every bar has some sort of swing, flying fox or slide that dumps you in the river and it really is all a bit crazy. There must be about six bars along the stretch of river and the first and second are about 50 and 150m respectively from the start point.
It is possibly the most uncultural, silliest thing you could want to do in a place like this but my God it’s a lot of fun! The bars offer all sorts of things (I won’t elaborate too much) and people easily spend a whole day on the river despite the agreement that you’ll have your tube back by 6pm. Hardly anyone does and the tube operators make a mint out of fining people (who have had so much fun they don’t care!) for late returns. This is Euan with Mark, who we hung out with for a bit and was great company.
Some of the swings were brilliant and more than one kayaker nearly wore someone swinging and dropping from a height
If you don’t stop at the bars it takes about 2 ½ hours to tube down but I don’t think anyone ever does this trip without stopping. We certainly didn’t :-)
There are plenty of (cheap) places to stay, including the riverside bungalows that turn into ovens during the day
so we opted for a more modern place that, because it was concrete, stayed cool and had a wonderful view over the river and paddies. This is down river from our balcony
and this is up river!
The place was recently built and very clean but that didn’t stop the insects. We shared our bed every night with tiny red ants (once we’d worked out that they didn’t bite, it wasn’t so bad) and our room with an impossibly cute baby gecko and other assorted other bugs. The ants just wouldn’t go away but they were hoovered up by another red-coloured bug that came known affectionately as the “ant buster”, as he’d sit there and grab unsuspecting ants, suck the life out of them then spit them out with a big wiggle before moving on to his next victim (yes, you may think that we have been unemployed for too long but we beg to differ).
There are many rickety bridges that cross the river and this one had only just opened up again after the wet season
They’re surprisingly sturdy structures and looked like they’d weathered the high river more than a few times
These two were just down from where we were staying and you can see the bungalows on the other side. We were wondering (hoping) if building was now banned on the other side of the river but with a new guest house apparently going up ever 45 days we didn’t think that Vang Vieng would remain in its current state for very long.
Vang Vieng isn’t everyones cup of tea as it clearly used to be a quiet little town in a very pretty setting. Now its still a quiet town but filled with backpackers (most around 19-25 years old), has loads of bars that play repeats of the TV show ‘Friends’ (we thought someone was joking when they told us but they weren’t) and all places have vast menus offering standard Laos fare and other ‘stuff’ that’s not everyones cup of tea either! Regardless of this, it is a great place to stop and do activities such as caving, hiking, canoeing and tubing. Tubing is easily the most popular option judging by the number of tubes hired out each day. Basically, you hire a tractor inner tube (stupidly, it costs more to hire a tube than it does to hire a scooter for the day…. go figure), cram into a tuk-tuk and get taken upstream for about 4kms then jump in your tube and float back down to Vang Vieng.
Locals have essentially created a natural water park and one that is easily the most beautiful I’ve ever been in. It is just so relaxing, sitting in a tube, drifting down the river…. until you get coaxed into one of the bars that are dotted along the edge of the river. These are not just any old bars. These are platform-on-stilts affairs that have guys holding out bamboo poles for you can grab so they can pull you in. Every bar has some sort of swing, flying fox or slide that dumps you in the river and it really is all a bit crazy. There must be about six bars along the stretch of river and the first and second are about 50 and 150m respectively from the start point.
It is possibly the most uncultural, silliest thing you could want to do in a place like this but my God it’s a lot of fun! The bars offer all sorts of things (I won’t elaborate too much) and people easily spend a whole day on the river despite the agreement that you’ll have your tube back by 6pm. Hardly anyone does and the tube operators make a mint out of fining people (who have had so much fun they don’t care!) for late returns. This is Euan with Mark, who we hung out with for a bit and was great company.
Some of the swings were brilliant and more than one kayaker nearly wore someone swinging and dropping from a height
If you don’t stop at the bars it takes about 2 ½ hours to tube down but I don’t think anyone ever does this trip without stopping. We certainly didn’t :-)
Some people go there just for the tubing and one Kiwi chap I spoke with had done it six days running but the standing record is 17 days straight. Its one of those activities that is just so popular, the operators will continue to put the prices up and people will still come to do it. As it was, they’d upped the price 35% in August 08 but that didn’t stop the 100s who come here to partake in the fun. If you have the chance to do it, we’d highly recommend it and don’t worry if you feel too old, that feeling goes away less than 100m down the river.
We hired a scooter for a day (ridiculously cheap at US$5) and headed out exploring the tracks around Vang Vieng. I was waiting for Euan to come back from the money exchange and he thought I had the CHiPs look going on. I beg to differ.
We spent the whole day bumping around dirt tracks, stopping every so often to swim or take a look at something. We stopped at one of the caves and Euan had a swim in the nearby waterhole while I talked to the water buffalo that were on their way to their own private waterhole (or, more accurately, muddy trench).
I’d never got up close to a water buffalo and while they’re not tall animals they are very very wide and stocky. One of them liked having his nose and ears scratched and sort of dosed off while I scratched. They seem very docile and I guess they’re manhandled a lot from birth. They do seem very chilled and we’ve never seen one move faster than a plod. Even when we saw them being transported in a tiny boat they were chilled, standing there facing outwards, jaws moving chewing their cud.
There were five of them and they all piled into this muddy trench, one by one, all peeing first before lying down. They just climbed all over one another until they found a spot they wanted to lie in, then literally collapsed into the water
before lying there chewing their cud with this look of utter contentment on their faces
Some of the tracks further along were a bit hairy and I bottomed the scooter out on a few occasions before being thwarted by a big mud hole. Euan walked through it first to see how deep it was (as passenger he drew the short straw on that one!) but it was too deep to cross. We had to go up and around another wee track and we very nearly came a cropper when I stupidly rode over a piece of black piping and the wheels slid out. Euan lost faith in my riding ability at that point and nearly got off and walked.
We rode through the next few mud holes that weren’t too deep and some of the bridges and gates were interesting affairs.
We had to pay a toll to go over this bridge as the river was too deep to cross. I didn’t like riding over them one bit as the bridges went up and down and side to side. I was really scared of going in, bike and all (spot the white knuckles).
Vang Vieng is still very cheap, especially to do things like kayaking etc but its one of these places that is going to continue to change rapidly and not necessarily for the better. I can’t see the demand reducing and prices are already rising so I’m glad we came here when we did. We’re making our way up to Luang Prabang, about 200km north of Vang Vieng.
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