Tubing in Vang Vieng - 31st of January - 5th of February

Mini-van from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng takes 7 hours, although it says only 4 h in every travel agency’s advertisement. And normally I wouldn’t mind about the couple of hours since I am always sleeping the travel time but this time it was quite impossible. The roads in Laos are highly undeveloped and you can find an actual asphalt-road only from big cities, like Vientiane, Pakse and Luang Prabang. So the road was really bumpy and even thought I couldn’t sleep I felt much more comfortable to keep my eyes closed as long as possible instead of watching our driver aiming for the next rally tour in a really narrow and curvy mountain roads.

So the travel to Vang Vien itself was already interesting. Also the arrivals in Laos in any town are quite a show. Seems like the bus stations are built outside of the city to provide jobs for tuk-tuk drivers who then harass all the arriving travelers offering their services. Since the actual town was 5 km from the station of course we also needed to take the Tuk-tuk and paid 10 000 Kip (=1€) per person which is actually really high price.

After arriving to town it was time to look for a place to stay. Since the main street is full of guest houses and hostels it was mainly just walking along these places and asking if they got free places. My second choice was central Backpackers hostel from which I had heard good reviews from other travelers and luckily they had a free dorm beds for only 30 000 Kip per night. I book a bed for me for three nights straight away (and of course I booked two more extra nights later after realizing how nice town Vang Vieng is and how much there are things to do).

In the dorm I met two great girls; Danny and Katie, who immediately took me to drink some buckets to the hostel restaurant while dining. The hostel was full of travelers and the evening end up with quite a party, first in the Irish bar with free drinks and afterwards in the local night club Moon Bar. Next morning was obviously quite slow and my biggest achievement for the day was to take care of my laundry, walking a bit around the town and watching 12 episodes of Friends. And the evening was again quite similar for the previous night. 

 

On my second day I went trekking outside of the city since the weather really wasn’t that optimal for tubing yet. Plan was to go and see some caves by walking. Well, the plan was good until I was walking alone in the grassy field to reach my first cave and I met a snake. That was it for me. I took 180 degrees to opposite direction and headed back to main road where there was quite unusual traffic jam which I, as an old cowgirl, found absolutely delightful way to calm my nerves after the encountering.

                French colonial heritage - Almost everywhere in Laos all the signs are both in french and Lao

                                            Traffic Jam

                   The scenery (and caves I was heading) just before the encountering with a deadly predator

 I headed back to hostel before dawn and went to have dinner with Danny and Katie again and afterwards headed again to the Irish bar where I met lots of other people who were going to tubing also on following day. We made a date for the meeting point at 12 o’clock so we could go as a large group. The more the merrier. 

                                                 Free drinks and happy hour in Irish bar

           One of best meals I have had in my whole trip - Pork vegetable soup with LOTS of herbs

The third was finally THE day, TUBING!!! Like promised, we had the meeting at 12 o’clock in front of the place where we could rent the tubes. On tube was 55 000 Kip + each of us needed to leave a deposit of 60 000 Kip which we would get back after returning the tube. Tuk-Tuk driver took us around 3,5 km upstream and then it was time to put all our stuff into dry-pack and climb into the tube. Let the tubing begin!

Then we flooded along the river for the next 4,5 hours. We had heard that the Laos government had closed all the bars along the river so we had a safety stock of beers with us. The day was so relaxing and fun!

After the tubing all of us looked like crabs with our lovely pink tans and felt quite exhausted after full day in the sun. So after having quick lunch we all headed back to our hostels to get a shower and relaxing a bit before heading out for the night again, of course, Irish bar.

 

Me and Janine ready to tube!

 

 

                                          Our tubing community

                                          Me and my best purchase in my whole trip from Koh Tao: Dry Pack!

                                                        Me and Danny and happy hour

My last full day was dedicated for caving. And to my great surprise all the others who went tubing with us had the same idea of going first some caving and then swimming into blue lagoon. So again we made a date for 11 AM in front of the bicycle rent, got our cycling equipments and it was again time to head off the town. The cave where we were heading was located around 7 km outside of the town and since the road was REALLY bad it took around one hour for us to get there (with two quick water breaks).

The entrance fee for the cave + blue lagoon was 10 000 Kip which we found quite okay. It is just so funny that when there are this kind of nature’s forming places why in every single place in Asia they take money from people for looking into those especially since there is not maintenance for the area at all. 

                                              Our caving and cycling and tubing community

                                                   Blue lagoon - Swimming!

                                                      From the cave

The actual cave was in quite high place. It took around 20 min serious climbing to reach the entrance and all of us were wet like pigs. The actual cave was large. The entrance hall there was still natural light but when going deeper we all had to use our torches to see where to step. And since the cave was full of rocky stones, deep gaps and different places where to hurt yourself, we really needed to stick together. The caving took in total about 1,5 hours and the humidity inside the cave was great even though the air was nicely cool.

After the caving it was time for long swimming and jumping in the blue lagoon. We spent the rest of the day just lying in the sun and relaxing. Around 4.30 PM it was time to head back to the town before the night fall (around 6 PM) since neither of us enjoyed the rocky road, especially in the dark. The evening ended up again like previous ones, in the Irish pub having the last drinks together before it was my time to continue my trip on the following day.

All in all- a great laid back town where I could have stayed another full wee if my schedule would have permitted this. Now I have only two weeks left anymore to  travel before Shanghai so next stop: Campodia! Via Vientiane and Pakse.