Vang Vieng

Friday 26th Feb

It's not until you travel through Laos that you realise how rugged the terrain actual is! The roads are partially built, narrow and pass through some huge elevations. Building these roads is clearly not an easy feat and not surprising that Laos has very little infrastructure. The journey to Vang Vieng was both breath taking and hair raising!

As we drove in to Vang Vieng the tall limestone cliffs stood proudly
next to the Nam Song River dominating the landscape.

There were a string of tourist accommodation, which lined both sides of the river, so we were spoilt for choice. After walking a few hundred meters in the searing heat we opted for Je Jardin Organique, which was clean, spacious and en suite, for just £7 per night for two people.

After we had settled in to the guesthouse we decided to explore the line of shops / town of Vang Vieng. There were plenty of tour operators offering treks, bike riding, caving, kayaking, rock climbing and tubing, the choice was endless!

Upon arriving we were warned by a B&B tout not to stay too close to the town as it could get very noisy. However, shrugging him off, believing that he was trying to get our customer for his own B&B, we decided to chance it.

Knowing very little about this place before arriving, we assumed it to be a peaceful village/town beside the river where you could do some great Kayaking! With that in mind for just £5 each we booked a day caving and kayaking with one of the main tour operators in the town.

Later that night we went a little further into town to eat dinner in one of the restaurants overlooking the river to watch a beautiful sunset over the limestone cliffs. As the sun was setting a sea of lights from the other side of the river lit up advertising Vang Vieng's
nightlife. One of the bars lit up to read 'Bucket Bar', needless to say the idea was to fill a bucket with alcohol and drink it! As we were all looking over at the bar a Dutch guy plonked himself down and said 'cool ah, fancy checking it out later'? I immediately tried to think of an excuse not to go...'ur,ur..maybe not tonight we've booked a kayaking trip for tomorrow morning'. Then Elliott piped up with, 'yeah but one isn't going to hurt, why not I'll join you'. Thank God I
thought Elliott will entertain him :o)! After several attempts of trying to persuade us, Jonny and I both decided to go back to the B&B for an early night. Surprisingly enough Elliott came back an hour later slightly tipsy and very chatty, full of confidence about checking out a wedding reception that was going on right outside our B&B. Although it was really noisy (as predicted by the other B&B tout), Jonny and I felt a little uncomfortable about gate crashing a wedding, so declined the offer and went back to bed.

The next day we woke bright and early for our kayaking trip, after several attempts of knocking on Elliott's door, we decided to go on and get some breakfast hoping that he would catch up. After a quick bite to eat we waited at the tour operators office for 10/15 minutes, with still no sign of Elliott. As he had already paid, the team had prepared his lunch and put a kayak on the van for him they we keen to wake him up. With a van full of people, we stopped off at the
guesthouse to try Elliott again...no luck so we went on without him!

After about 30 minutes we reached our destination, we walked a little before reaching a village and then on to 'Water Cave'. There we waited for a few minutes before being given a make shift, rusty head lamp connected by two old copper wires to a motor bike battery, which each of us had to hang off our shoulders. We we also given a large inflatable ring to float our way through the cave using ropes to pull ourselves along inside the cave.

As the rope ended our guide order us to link together by hooking our feet under each others inner tubes. Jonny's voice a little shaky kindly whispered 'you alright'? 'Yes', I said with a beaming smile, having just shone my touch around to realise there were no stray routes to get lost! The cave was eerie, a few jokes were made about watching out for snakes, and other creepy crawlies, but I was confident that with amount of noise being made by our guide singing at the top of his out of tune voice that we were pretty much guaranteed not to see any wildlife!

After about 45 minutes were emerged from the cave, the same way we came in, to say a quick hello to the next tour group waiting for the inner tubes and their turn to explore the cave. Our guide led us up to a small wooden structure beside the cave, we he laid out our prepared lunch of rice, vegetables and bread. Still feeling full from breakfast I realised it was only 11am, 'strange', I thought, but didn't question it as things are often done obscurely in SE Asia!

After we had finished eating we went on to explore 'Elephant Cave', a small cave (not submerged in water), which was next to the village we passed earlier on the trek. Weirdly enough some of the rock formations did actually look like elephants and so appropriately named! Once we had finished exploring and trying to look respectful of the strange Buddhist statues they often put in caves along with way too many incense sticks that make you smell like a full blown hippy by the time you come out!

We made our way back to the van and travelled a short distance before being dropped off with the kayaks next the Nam Song River, ready to make our way down stream back to Vang Vieng.

Jonny and I shared a kayak, Jonny at the back with the important job of steering! Three other couples were also paired up, a young Korean couple, a Swedish couple in their 50s and a English guy with his French speaking Belgian girlfriend, and finally three guides on two kayaks for our safety. Once we were given a brief lesson on kayaking, such as; 'here's a life jacket, there's your paddle', and a pat on the back with; 'you'll be fine it's not the rainy season', we were apparently ready to go! Fortunately for me Jonny had plenty of experience, having grown up canoeing and wind surfing in the Hampshire area. I thought I was a little wobbly until I looked up and saw the
young Korean couple capsize their boat in a calm, knee deep ripple of a rapid! It was incredibly hard not to laugh, but being in a Buddhist country I didn't want to take my chance with Karma!

After a mile of gentle rapids and calm relaxing water, with the occasional stop to turn the Koreans back in the right direction, or pluck them out of a bush or mud bank they had managed to wedge themselves onto. We were thoroughly enjoying the serenity and beauty of this magical place, stopping to wave at young Laos children artfully spear fishing on the way down the river. Just as I was enjoy the peaceful bliss of what I almost considered paradise, we turned a corner to a scene that can only be described as a take from Apocalypse Now! Violently loud music blared out of huge base speakers, that drowned out any noise of the natural environment! There lining the river towards Vang Vieng was bar after bar, with signs reading 'Get your Free French fries here'. Bar owners/ staff were all touting for our business, attempting to entice you in by the promotion of cheap alcohol, makeshift swings, ropes and slides that dropped you back in the river!

Much to the Swedish couples horror our guide was heading to one of the bars, ushering us all to alight for some 'fun'. I climbed onto the platform to be greeted by many other young European tourists, lounging around mid-day drinking beer and doing double back flips off the bars makeshift 16ft trapeze! A little dumbfounded I sat silently watching people climb the 25ft structure to swing from the trapeze into the water! After assessing many guinnipigs I decided to have a go, but decided feet first would be a safer option. By the time I climbed the wobbly 25ft structured I realised how incredibly high it suddenly felt, without the Dutch courage of alcohol I nervously swung myself off the platform. A rush of adrenaline soared through me as I suddenly realised that at some point I would have to let go and drop into the river...needless to say I swung backwards and forwards clinging onto the trapeze for several minutes before plucking up the courage to fall in! As I swam back to shore Jonny greeted me with my towel and said, 'there's no way in hell I'm doing that'! Shortly after that our guide gave us the signal to get back on our kayaks, 'thank god I thought', as my ears began to ring with tinnitus from the incredibly loud noise of the music!

A few moments later, again to Swedish couples horror, we were heading for another bar, with a 150ft length slide made of a rough concrete construction that had a 10ft drop. By this point the shy Belgian girl, who had suddenly grown a huge amount for beer confidence was convincing Jonny to try the slide. Again after watching quite a few people going first I thought I'd go for. This seemed to give Jonny a bit more faith and with further persuasion from the Belgian, he plunged his way down the huge slide and into the river below with a look of absolute horror on his face the whole time! :o)

After about 30 minutes we left the chaos behind us and continued on to eventually reach Vang Vieng, with a very drunk Belgian singing Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of her voice all the way to the end. The trip conveniently finished right next to our guesthouse!

We later found out that Elliott had indeed joined the wedding reception and was welcomed in, however he did say it became a bit of a game for them to see how drunk they could get the foreigner. Needless to say poor Elliott spent most the day in the bathroom!

Vang Vieng was certainly not the Eco Discovery I was looking for, it really did make me feel so sad to see them ruin their cultural identity to panda to the western binge drinking mentality. Attracting these types of tourists is never going to be beneficial in the long term sustainability of the town. Drugs are already a problem and it is only going to get worse, almost every menu in every bar is offering opium, mushrooms or cannabis.