Don't Follow My Lead

I’m now in Vang Vieng, which is my fourth city, in my five city tour of Laos.

I’m sorry, I haven’t share any of my stories of Thailand yet, they are awesome, and if I can get back to them, it will be even better. In those stories, there’s soccer, prostitutes (don’t jump to conclusions please), ladyboys, random dress ups, and learning about backpacking.

But I don’t want to keep holding back the stories, so I’ll write about my adventures of today.

I connected with David, and Tatiana (couple I met in Chiang Mai, Thailand) on what probably be my last adventure with them. They are going north and east to Vietnam, while I’ll be leaving south towards Cambodia. They made plans, along with 2 other couples, to go tubing and kayaking in Vang Vieng.

A little story about this city as explained to me. This is a party town, and based on my less than 24 hours in this city, I can see why. But what is even more interesting, is that, it used to be even MORE of a party town, up until 2012 or 2013, when about 27 people died in one year due to excessive drinking, accidents in the river and nearby clubs. After that, the government crack down on the seediest of places, and closed down a few others. This is not a big city, and they didn’t want the bad publicity. Even in TripAdvisor when you look for things to do, the number one is go to a club. And believe me, even if you didn’t know where it is, you will quickly find out, just by walking the streets. There’s only about 6 blocks, and 3 main streets in this town.

Jenn (friends also with David and Tatiana) found me at the entrance of this bar, as I was about to walk in, and she was just outside. She taps my shoulder and we said hello, she introduces me to some new friends she just made, 2 Korean girls. We start talking, and tells me about the kayaking the next day. Since I’m not a party person, and to have someone stop me from going to the club, I quickly change my plans and join Jenn and her new friends at a quieter bar, where we played a game of pool before the bar closed. Most (all I think) bars in Laos need to close by midnight. This has been true in all the cities I’ve visited so far.

I woke up early in the morning and booked my day trip with the same company as my friends. There’s 8 of us from the Elephant Santuary, our bond runs deep I guess. We start the morning by being transported to a nearby cave, where we are introduced to the Elephant Cave. I’m not going to lie, is more of a rock opening than a cave, but sometimes you have to take what you get in these tours. However, he explained to us that there are 3 main ethnic group of people in Laos: Laotians, Hmongs, and Mon-khmer, he belongs to the latter. There’s also another 130+ ethnic minority groups.

This is followed by a river entrance into a real cave, the cave is about 1km long, we used headlights to see, and tubes for us to float down the cave entrance. There’s rope to guide the way. Unfortunately there weren’t picture of this, because I didn’t like the chances of my camera finding its way at the bottom. It is highly recommended to be going down a cave in almost pitch blackness. We were the last group of the day to go in the cave, so we got to experience it all. Sometimes is good to be last.

Afterwards we are taken down to a launching spot in the Nam Song river where we proceed to kayak for 10km. Thankfully we are going with the current. The company provides lifejacket for us, but only as an option. I opted out of the lifejacket. We put our not-to-be-wet belongings in a dry bag that the company also provided for us. I put my Nikon Camera, cellphone, passport, and wallet in it. Me and Jenn quickly find out how waterproof this bags really are, when after going through a rapid, we didn’t control the kayak correctly and ended in some ravines that force us to capsize. I’m momentarily scared when I can’t come up for air, where’s that lifevest now? But is only the kayak stopping me from coming up for air. I breath air and with the help of the guides put the kayak in its upright position. I check my bags, and everything is dry. Thankfully that was our biggest scared of the day. The water was refreshing though.

The views down the river are just amazing, the city of Vang Vieng and it’s surrounding areas are cuddled by mountains and peaks that paint an outstanding view. I was able to take some pictures of it, but pictures are simply not enough.

Jenn's back and mountains

Mountains along the Nam Song

Children playing in the river

Another of the main attractions of Vang Vieng is to go down the same river (smaller distance) in a tube. There’s about 7 or 8 bars along the river (more before the crackdown), and if you want to stop at a certain bar, they’ll throw a line to you, and pull you into their bar where you will spend your money. All bars have some type of entertainment, we stopped at one that included the following:

Me testing my boxing skills

Me winning my boxing skills

Basketball hoop

Ping Pong and "bocce" court

Before finishing back in town for you to take a shower and prepare for the night. All in all, and awesome experience, and one of those reminders that when you are backpacking, everyday’s a Saturday.

Money note: The tubing in the cave and kayaking experience was 90,000 Kip (about 11 dollars), it included the dry bag, lunch and a water, along with transportation and kayak delivery. Very worth the money. Few in my group were able to get it for 85,000 Kip (10 dollars), so like most things in southeast Asia, everything can be bargain if you have the right number of people with you. The name of the trekking company was Riverside Tours. I have no affiliation with them, you can try others if you wish.