We managed to find this beautiful place to stay that was slightly out of the main centre, with a US$4 bungalow. It was a great place to relax and read after a few days of cycling.
The town of Vang Vieng was another story. There were numerous bars with blarring TVs all day long, with anything from the Simpsons to Friends to the latest movie. These bars were set up as 'TV bars' and so the reason to go to them was to sit and watch the blarring TV. This aspect alone was something we have only seen in the real touristy destinations in southern Thailand. While trying to avoid these, there were some other nice places to eat.
Vang Vieng is set amongst limestone cliffs which normally would be a stunning backdrop for the town. Yet unfortunately when we were there, there was really bad smog from the surrounding 'slash and burn' agricultural techniques. So for us, we could only see an outline of these limestone cliffs, and anything more than a few km away was impossible to see.
The other aspect of Vang Vieng, that anyone who goes there will do, is tubing. This involves sitting in a truck tire tube, while floating down a river for a few kms. As it is so popular bars have set up down the river with blaring music, swings and lots of Beer Lao. So off we went to pile into a jumbo (3 wheeled vehicle) to take us upstream to start tubing.
The swings were great fun with some being like a flying fox over water, and other like a giant circus swing. We saw a few nasty lands with people stumbling out of the water soon to be black and blue. Our choice of day to tube ended up coinciding with St Patricks day (not intentional). So things were more rawkus than usual, with naked irish men on the swings with an irish flag off their back.
The bars down the river are well described by being very 'beach boy'. Loud music with people in their bikinis dancing. These bars weren't really our cup of tea so further down stream we found some more laid back bars to enjoy tasty Beer Lao. It took us a bit longer than we expected to get down stream and for the last hour we had to swim in order to avoid the late penalty fee for returning our tubes. All up it was a really relaxing and fun day.
We ended up staying in Vang Vieng for 3 days which was great to rejuvenate before the mountains further north.
2 comments:
Hello this is Scotty here..
It also took me all day to do the tubing course.. I ended up being rather twisted by the end, in fact I don’t think I ever made it to the end!!
I was wondering if you guys did the final challenge "the cliff jump" I shit myself when I did this as I was rather drunk from the Lao Lao, and the Lao beer :)
So glad you have made it out to Laos from the photos it looks the same as how I saw it.
Ok Happy traveling I would rather be out there than in the office!!!
Scotty :)
Wow, what fun. You must be so fit now with all the cycling, you are going to leave me for dead on the Alps!! The 1500m climb is bigger than the one we are doing in the Alps.
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