Laos: Vang Vieng
- Anna Mar
- Jun 26, 2017
- 6 min read
“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us."
Welcome to Vang Vieng, the back-packer paradise, where the beautiful nature meets the party central of Laos. This town is all about chilling, tubing and living life to it’s fullest potential. Best of all is that it’s two days before Christmas “Jingle Jingle boys and girls!” and the city is filled with the holiday vibes.
After the bumpiest, 8-hour ride of my life, from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng, in a 12-passenger van equipped with throw up bags (just in case) and stuffed with 14 people, we finally made it in one piece. The ride wasn’t too bad as I met a few awesome chicks on the way. That’s the beauty of travelling solo, being so open to meeting new people and happily inviting them into your life. The catch of the day consisted of three girls from the UK named Shikha, Neyha and Ren (current Melbourne resident). We ended up having great Christmas adventures and created unforgettable memories, but more on that in a bit. Still crammed in the van, the driver informed us of the arrival in Vang Vieng, we looked around a dark bus stop and realized the bus company bullshitted us when said the drop off point will be in the center of town. The driver tried to scheme more money from us but we decided to find our own way to our hostels. Around the corner we found a cheap tuk tuk driver, who was willing to drop each one of us to the designated accommodations for a quarter of the price we were quoted 10 minutes ago. Score!
The center of town looked wild, running mad with drunk-ish westerners. The main strip had a bunch of hostels, restaurants, a lounge/ pub and a “Rasta bar” with funny pizzas, psychedelic shakes and 420 friendly options on the menu. Once we checked in and dropped our stuff off myself and the girls met up for a bite to eat and discuss plans for the next few days in this awesome town. There was enough to do for a few days, as we planned on 3-4 days max. The area housed plenty of tour agents to book various activities, such as tubing down the Nam Song river, caving at Tham Nan which is half hour drive by tuk tuk from the center, hot air balloon rides, Tham Phu Kham blue lagoon and trekking or rock climbing in the limestone mountains. We opted for the caves as it sounded fun and booked for the next day. We discovered lounge around the corner, where we got pitched to go to a party at the Jungle Project club that evening, not far from the center. Ren and I got tickets and figured “ we will sleep when we’re dead” YOLO. Our travel buddies opted out as we did have an early morning for the caving trip. The party was cool, decked out in black lights and neon paint, music was a little off but I can’t expect good house music or hip hop in Southeast Asia. It was a cool experience but the company is what made it an amazing night and we had a blast. Before heading home we munched out on the local Lao crape with Nutella/ banana filling and called it a night.
Waking up was the least favorite part of the next day as 4 hours of sleep is not enough, at least in my book. The cave experience was not exactly what we expected. First we waited an hour for our group to be called to get to the cave due to “equipment issues”. Then, we plopped into a floating water tube and pulled ourselves into the cave by the rope attached to the rock’s ceiling. My upper arms had great exercise but we were expecting to actually go caving not work out our biceps by pulling our body weight in a hollow rock structure filled with shallow water. It was kind of like a lazy river, just in a dark space where you had to work in order to move. Once again it’s the company that makes any adventure worth it, and we literally did not stop laughing the entire time. The tour was so so but the experience and the flow was priceless. It was still early in the day and in hopes to make up for the not so lazy cave trip, the next best thing to do was tubing down the Nam Song River. That was the best outcome of that day. The scenery was breathtaking, the bars on either sides of the river were fun as the owners pull you in for shots with a plastic bottle attached to a rope (only 5 open at a at time after 22 tourists died in 2012), it was just a spectacular time and of course with plenty of laughs to go around. This definitely made up for earlier disappointment. The whole experience was maybe 2 ½ hours and we had a personal guide follow us on a kaya to give us a push in case we got stuck on a rock or to take a picture of us. This is one of the experiences that’s a must do when in this city.
In the morning when we all met up for breakfast, we had no plans and it was Christmas Eve. A few reviews said the blue lagoon was an interesting visit so we got a tuk tuk and headed there. As Neyha and Shikha were leaving the next day, so naturally we all choose to spend the day together. Outfitted in red Santa hats we were off to conquer the day. Blue lagoon was also nothing special but we did get a bunch of good pictures, half were photo bombed by a few guys from the neighboring country (China). The evening ended with another trip to the Jungle Project club we visited the previous night, where shots and balloons were plenty and you can smell the pot in the air, just another night in Vang Vieng. Next morning we said our goodbyes and myself and Ren tried to figure out how we would spend X-mas Day. By now we figured that the best thing to do in this town is the tubing, a few other people from our hostel were heading there too so we all split the ride and met some cool people in the process from all over the world. It was an interesting mix to say the least. We had an all boys crew from Malta, a bunch of Aussies, an Indian and a few people from the UK and Europe. Armed with rice scorpion whiskey (from Luang Prabang – Link) and holiday spirit, we were on our merry way to take over Christmas - Lao style. Fifteen rowdy foreigners conquered the Nam Song River in outfitted in Santa hats. During this trip I received a new nickname too, “Brooklyn”. I wore it proudly for the rest of the trip. As we flowed down on the tubes, the crowd shrunk as we lost people to the current. We stopped at riverside bars and had a few shots in the name of the holiday spirit, then we heard some loud music in the distance, something resembling bad techno from 20 years ago. Naturally we followed our ears. It was the two bars across from each other where the locals hang out. It looked like a fun place to continue drinking responsibly. We parked our tubes on the rocky shore and settled in a cabana on the water as we were receiving strange looks from the local patrons. In a few minutes we were armed with Beer Lao and interesting looking food variety, which I hoped was chicken and rice. Various creepy critters were on the menu as well but I wasn’t brave enough to swallow it down. Few beers were downed and we were back on the river floating along and having so much fun that we missed our exit. This forced our entire team to troop in bathing suits while carrying the tube, mine of course was bigger then myself. The walk back was not as fun as it seems, the buzz from the beer made it all better thankfully. All in all I had a pretty awesome Christmas this year, especially as I don’t usually celebrate it (New Years is my equivalent).
Dates of travel: 12/22/16 – 12/26/16
Foods to try: Grilled pork, grilled duck, egg and cheese crapes, fresh pineapple juice, chicken curry, hot pot, banana and nutella crape, fresh coconut juice, riverweed, fresh mango juice
Sounds like quite the adventure! Those long, bumpy rides can be brutal, but meeting new people along the way definitely makes it more memorable. Solo travel is such a great way to connect with others and experience things in a new light. If you ever find yourself in Poland, near Szczecinek, I came across a place with a pretty view through https://hotelin.com/hotels/Poland/West-Pomerania/Szczecinek/Pretty-view—could be a relaxing stop!