Vang Vieng

We recently arrived in Vang Vieng. This is a lovely spot in Laos that reminds us a bit of Queenstown in New Zealand. Like Queenstown, it is a destination for thrill seekers wanting to try extreme sports and outdoor activities. Also like Queenstown, the town centre is located below some high mountains. These mountains are visible all over town and are absolutely beautiful.

Having lunch in a restaurant.

While you can do all kinds of activities such as caving, ballooning, rock climbing, mountain biking, kayaking, the most common activity nearly every visitor does at least once is tubing down the Nam Song River. The town is built along side the river so visitors are taken several kilometres upstream and they then float back to Vang Vieng as it meanders under the beautiful mountains you can see above. Today we did a kayaking trip with several breaks along the way. We started by diving 17km upstream from Vang Vieng. We put our kayaks in and then started down stream. There were a few rapids which mad it quite exciting. The countryside was so beautiful and peaceful.

The water is very clean, but looks stirred up from the rains.

We canoed downstream about 3km and then pulled to the side and walked about 1.5km to a cave. The cave is actually a flooded cave and you travel up an underground river.

Walking up to the underground river cave.

We got up to the cave and had to wait a while for our groups turn to enter the cave. There are some real tight spots in there, so only a few people go in at a time. While we waited, we did some swimming in the river that comes out of the cave.

This is rather chilly as it all comes out from under the mountain.

Here is where the river (not the one we kayak down) comes out of the mountain. The entrance to the cave is a very tight crack located between the stone directly above Stan's head and the vine hanging down into the water.

We finally geared up with a head lamp, tyre tube, helmets and our life jackets. The current was so strong we had to pull ourselves into the cave with a rope.

After struggling with a tight entrance and a strong current, we got into the cave. Near the entrance we had a green glow as the light from outside filtered through the water from below, but very quickly it became pitch black and we were grateful for the head torches. We were also very grateful for our helmets as we would have banged our heads again and again on the low ceilings or squeezing through tight corners.

You can see the water patterns on the roof.

One of the tight corners. Without the camera flash on, one navigates this with only one's head torch.

With constant flowing water, you don't get the cave formations you see in other caves.

Because it is so dark, Stan lost Nicole for a bit and took a few photos of the girl next to him whom he thought was Nicole. One picture turned out nicely. It was in an open area and one can really see some of the water patterns on the ceiling.

This is us leaving the cave. You get an idea on how tight the entrance is.

We had a delicious lunch in a restaurant next to the cave and then walked back to our kayaks on the main river. On the way we passed another cave, much much smaller. This cave is called the Elephant cave because of a rock formation in the cave that looks a little like an elephant.

Elephant cave.

We then jumped back into our kayak and continued down the river.

Beautiful countryside.

Finally got a photo of both of us by handing the camera to some Spanish girls in our kayaking group.

After about 9km of drifting and paddling down stream, we got to the first of the "tubing bars". This is where people going tubing are taken and encouraged to drink lots before drifting down to Vang Vieng in inner tubes.  The river also gets a bit calmer here and there are no more rapids.

Heaps of tourists drinking before they go tubing down the river. Each bar has huge speakers pumping out trance music. Imagine a huge open air daytime disco and you will get the idea of what some of these places are like.

We stopped for a break at the bar that our tour group runs for their tubing operation. We actually had a lot of fun here. There was mud tug of war and mud volley ball as well as an amply stocked bar.

Our tour group's bar.

Us playing mud volley ball. Note that Nicole is playing and she no longer has an excuse to wuss out of volley ball at Bill and Henny's house.

After volley ball we were filthy.

After volley ball we cleaned up with a hose and then went back to the kayaks to head home. This time we had to steer around the people who were drifting down the river in their tubes. We got back to Vang Vieng where our kayak was collected and then we walked back to our hotel for a nice hot shower. About an hour after we got back, we had a bit of rain. Here is the view of the rain from the door to our room:

This is a wonderful place to visit and we'd encourage any adventurers to come here. We did all the above in only one day for $12 each. There is still a lot more to do.