Vang Vieng is a fantastic place for outdoor enthusiasts. It's a small town situated in between beautiful limestone mountains and intersected by the incredibly clean Nam Song river. The river is used by locals for water and bathing and by tourists for kayaking and the famous tubing. There are numerous caves scattered throughout the surrounding area to explore as well. The town is a bit of a party scene due to the draw of tubing and day drinking on the river but there is plenty of quiet, serene nature if that's not your scene.
We arrived in town about 12:30 PM and checked in at Pan's place. This is a well reviewed hostel that's great for solo travelers or for people looking to mingle and party. The staff is incredibly helpful and they have everything you need. However, a night there we moved across the street to Kamphone hotel as they had $10 rooms with AC.
After settling in we rented bikes across the street (20,000 kip each) and headed north out of town in search of caves. We reached the caves near Elephant cave, found a required guide (50,000 kip) and marched toward the water cave. This would prove to be one of the highlights of all of our SE Asia trip. We locked up our valuables at a nearby restaurant, grabbed tubes and headlamps and got in the water. After biking almost an hour, this cold water felt like perfection. We pulled on ropes to guide us through the cool shallow cave. Luckily, we had the whole cave to ourselves and it was such a refreshing, eerie and thrilling experience. At one point we turned off our headlamps and were guided by the whistling of our guide.
We then explored two dry caves on our own which was once again trilling. There were massive ballroom like areas that blew us away. It was so quiet and peaceful to walk through with no sound other than the shuffling of our feet and drops of fallen water. If you are ever in Vang Vieng, put down the beer, get out of the tube and check these caves out.
The next day we figured we had to try tubing. The way it works is you rent a tube and get in a tuk tuk that takes you upriver. You get in the water and float with the current until you come to a bar where they throw you a line and reel you in. We read that the party has become significantly less crazy since the government cracked down on it some six months ago. There were too many bars, drunk swimmers and deaths. There used to be zip lines and slides used to re-enter the shallow waters but no longer. Now there are only 5 bars open daily and each day they rotate which bars are open.
We were reeled into the first bar by a cowboy hat wearing local who called Alex sexy. He then called me sexy and himself sexy. In hindsight, that may be the only English word he knew. This bar was all about beer pong and flip cup. The next stop had a basketball hoop, boxing over water, ping pong, bocce and mud volleyball. This was much more my scene. The third bar was nothing special and the last we had to skip to return our tubes by 6 pm so we'd get our full deposit back. All in all, I wish we had taken the tubes the 3 hour ride down the river rather than stopping off at bars at all. Either way it was an experience worth having.
The next day we rented bikes again and tried making it to the blue lagoon. We rode down bumpy dirt roads around cows and stopped at Lusi cave. This was another large cavernous cave with high ceilings and steep drops. We walked until there it was roped off with a danger sign and turned around and exited.
We continued our journey and stopped at yet another cave that had a sign by the road claiming a beautiful swimming hole. It was super hot and we needed to cool off. Plus the roads were terrible and another 5km to the blue lagoon seemed unnecessary. This cave required a guide once again who led us in. We right away left everything behind including our shoes and shirts in anticipation of the swim. It was, however, a 5 minute walk on slick clay to the pool. At one point a 3-4 foot snake slithered slowly past Alex's feet. I kind of freaked out but neither Alex nor the guide saw it. He didn't believe me. We got to the end where there was a ladder leading down into a muddy bathtub about 3 feet wide and 10 feet long. I was pretty freaked out after seeing that snake but Alex jumped right in. She coaxed me in, we dunked and got out. The end farther from the entrance was kinda deep. It was really cool water and an even cooler experience. It revived us from our heat stroke. On the way back out, I stopped and looked where I saw the snake escape to earlier and sure enough it was just sitting there coiled and looking at me. I pointed it out to the guide and he seemed surprised. He told us it wasn't poisonous. Satisfied, we found daylight and rode home.
The following morning we boarded a minivan for a 3.5 hour ride to Vientiane.
Next stop Vientiane!
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