Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng, Laos

Written by Rob

We arrived in Vang Vieng yesterday afternoon. We caught the VIP bus from LP – which was a good choice – as the ride was long and very twisty up and down mountains – it took 7hrs to travel the 160kms. There was lot of people who got vey motion sick – making the ride a little unpleasant – Kylie had read it was a pretty bad ride so took her anti-motion sick drugs and slept the entire way.

Vang Vieng is a dusty little town sitting on the edge of a river surrounded by limestone mountains and cliffs. It used to be a stop because people wanted to see how a small town in Laos is, but because so many backpackers were stopping here it has now turned into a big party town. After dark heaps of bars open on a little island in the river and things get very crazy – they only sell drinks/cocktails/spirits by the bucket or beer by the tallie – but its all fairly cheap!

The main ‘must do’ in Vang Vieng is going ‘tubing’ – this involves hiring a tractor tire insert (for an exorbitant amount) and being dumped 3km up the river to float back. There are many bars along the river bank that fish you in for a drink the way – and from what we saw yesterday not many people float in sober - it is really just a novel way of doing a pub crawl (lucky the water is not too deep).

We are planning on ‘tubing’ this afternoon and then doing some sight-seeing tomorrow – there are apparently some beautiful caves around, one with a lagoon inside. We are not sure if we will join a tour or hire a bicycle and go there ourselves (about 30km).