Vang Vieng: A River Full of Tubes

Laos


Not that long ago, Vang Vieng was the party capital of Southeast Asia. The riverside town's main attraction was party, tubing down the river, alcohol, and drugs. Not a good combination. A shockingly high number of tourists died on the river. But it took more than 20 deaths until in 2012 the Lao Government decided to close down most of the riverside bars that had sprung up along the river like mushrooms (pun intended).

A Change of Image

Since then, Vang Vieng tries to improve and change its image away from the party town to an outdoor destination and to attract a different kind of tourists. That works only partly. Sure, the music isn't that loud anymore, only a few bars are left along the river and there are now at least as many mid-range hotels as cheap hostels. However, still plenty of bars advertise free shots and happy hours, it's not uncommon to see drunk guys staggering through town at 6 pm, and some restaurants still offer - very openly - food and drinks with "special ingredients".


Booking a Tour - Or Not

Vang Vieng is situated on the Nam Song river and is surrounded by amazing landscape. The town itself, however, is - there's not other way to put it - ugly. Nothing remains of an original village. Everything is geared towards tourism and judging by the many construction sites and new places, the tourism industry is booming. Vang Vieng is not a place to wander around and enjoy. It's a place to book a tour and get out of town. Dozens of tour operators offer mainly kayaking and/or tubing tours. All offers are more or less the same and most are sold without enthusiasm - you're just one tourist more. If you don't buy, the next one will.

None of the offers really convinced us. Sure, kayaking on the river sounds nice but a) dry season is a bad time for kayaking since in some places there's not enough water and b) there's nothing special or individual about the tours. So instead of booking a tour and sharing a cave or the water with tons of other people, we decided to explore the region by bike. Before that, however, Hossam took a paramotor flight to appreciate the landscape from above.


The paramotors, powered paragliders that can carry two passengers, start from the old airstrip in Vang Vieng. Take-off and landing are smooth, as is the flight. The machine is very loud, but the views, of course, are spectacular. It's definitely one of the best ways (if not the very best) to take in the stunning landscape of Laos. Just hold on to your valuables; we've heard of people losing their GoPros.

Renting a Bike

Many places in Vang Vieng rent out bikes and most have two types: City bikes without gear and mountain bikes with gear. The latter are more expensive (still very cheap though) but if you have a look at the roads outside the village, it's clear that you need one of those. As always with rental bikes, the quality - or rather the maintenance - of the bikes is bad and you end up swearing every time you try to change gear. Nevertheless, cycling is a great way to explore the surrounding countryside, or at least part of it. To tell the truth, we didn't get very far.


Our first stop was at a small, rocky hill (Par Poak, according to the map we received when renting the bikes) just across the river. An extremely bumpy farm track leads through fields to the base of the hill where you park your bike and pay an entrance fee. Or a climbing fee, in this case. The way up is a scramble but that's part of the fun and the views from the top are fantastic.


Jang Cave

The karst mountains surrounding Vang Vieng are full of caves, the biggest one of them is Jang Cave. In the 19th century, it provided shelter to the people of the surrounding villages from marauding Chinese.

The cave entrance is high up a mountain and is reached via a long, steep stairway. Despite its interesting history, we didn't expect too much from this cave but were positively surprised. It really is big and there are some impressive stalactites and stalagmites, tunnels and chambers, and a small altar with donations.



Although the landscape around Vang Vieng is stunning and there are lots of activities to keep you busy, it's not the outdoor paradise it is advertised as. The tours are too standardized and there's not much variety on offer. For example, all offer tubing, but virtually no company offers hiking trips (longer than half an hour) - apparently, as we were told, because nobody is interested in hiking. Too bad, I'm sure it would be a fantastic experience to hike in the mountains or the countryside around Vang Vieng.



Location: Vang Vieng, Laos

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Murchison Falls: On the White Nile

Image
Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda Murchison Falls National Park lies in north-western Uganda around the White Nile and east of Lake Albert and is the country's biggest national park. Over a hundred years ago, the area's inhabitants had to leave because of the sleeping sickness spread by tse-tse flies. In the 1950s, the area was declared a national park and in the 1960s it was one of the most-visited parks in East Africa. In 1954, Ernest Hemingway flew over the park and his plane crashed; it was the first of two consecutive plain crashes in Africa he survived. How to Get to Murchison Falls National Park Red Chilli Hideaway   in Kampala has very good offers for three days/two nights safaris to Murchison Falls National Park. More expensive options include chimp and rhino tracking, but we booked the cheapest safari since we were mainly interested in seeing the falls. The drive to the national park took ages (getting out of Kampala was the hardest part - the city is famous for ...
Read more

Isla de Ometepe: Two Volcanoes and a Lake

Image
Nicaragua Our first destination in Nicaragua was going to be the island of Ometepe, an island with two volcano in the enormous Lake of Nicaragua. Getting to Nicaragua We left Monteverde on the 4.20 am bus to Puntarenas and got off at the Panamericana in La Irma. 4.20 am was obviously way too early after our   activity-packed day in Monteverde   but there weren’t many options… either 4.20 or 3 pm. After a not so long wait in La Irma, we caught a bus to Peñas Blancas, the border with Nicaragua. At the border, you first have to pay $7 to leave Costa Rica (I still don’t understand what exactly departure taxes are for), then you get your passport stamped and walk to the Nicaraguan side of the border. In a small tent a nice lady gives you a ticket (what it’s for? No idea. Entrance ticket to the country maybe..?), after that you walk to the immigration office. Ignore the “taxi, taxi” calls, the office is just across the street. Entering Nicaragua costs another $13 but the formalities...
Read more

Sipi Falls: Waterfalls and Views

Image
Uganda There are travelers who like buses, there are travelers who take buses to save money, and then there's us. We'd love to save money but after more than a year of traveling, we just don't have the stamina and patience for long bus rides anymore. How to Get to Sipi Falls The nice lady at our guesthouse in Entebbe organized a taxi for us to go to Sipi Falls. The only thing was, she didn't know where Sipi was. Nor did the driver. They only knew it was "near" the town of Mbale (actually it's 70 km from Mbale). Our driver, who drove an airport taxi, probably had never been too far away from Kampala and had no idea where he was going. From Kampala, there are two ways to go to Sipi: a long and a short way. Our driver took the long way. He got a speeding ticket and almost drove to the Kenyan border (twice). By 6 pm we arrived at the turnoff to Sipi and it was clearly the driver's first time driving in the mountains. Despite his frequent complaints (where ...
Read more