Vang Vieng

With the promise of being a backpacker’s haven and with mixed reviews, we weren’t exactly sure if we would even like Vang Vieng but since we would be passing through, we figured we’d give it at least 48 hours to find out. Sure enough, there were all the trappings of a backpacker’s mecca, with menus featuring “homesick food” along with happy shakes, happy pizza, or happy anything (meaning magic mushrooms, weed, or opium laced). Reruns of Friends competed with each other on the TV screens of many adjacent restaurants, Bob Marley filled the air at all hours and there were almost more grungy dreadlock clad tourists than there were locals wandering aound. But the prospect of not seeing more Buddist temples, a plethora of activities to choose from and spectacular scenery won us over pretty quickly.

Our first day began by exploring
some caves by inner tube, before climbing aboard our kayaks and paddling downstream. After a few small rapids and a few kilometres from town, we encountered the primary daytime activity for tourists. Floating down river and effectively doing a pub crawl at the numerous makeshift bars offering cheap drinks and fear inducing activities such as the “swing of death” or the “neck cracking zipline”. It was all quite surreal with people swinging and diving into the river, others throwing us lines to `fish` us into a bar blaring music of any genre, as long as it was louder and different to the bar across the river. Obviously we had found our day two activity and while we avoided the neck cracking we did do the swing a few times. Climbing to the top of a very high rickety platform to jump off looks a lot easier than it is and caused many to hesitate.

Continuing the adventure theme, we booked in for some rock climbing at a nearby limestone cliff with a group of Brits and our guide Adam. That was weird having people keep asking, “where is the next hand hold” and me constantly answering, “how should I know” before realizing my mistake. of our day, (and the next coupleWe spent the rest of nights) with our climbing buddies drinking and eating at the many great restaurants and bars in town.

A day of cycling, (on real mountain bikes!!) through neighbouring villages, carrying our bikes through rivers, exploring more caves and cooling off in swimming holes was a welcome escape from the Marley music of town. We did manage to shelter from a thunder storm while our flat tyre was repaired and were eventually forced to turn back when the mud on our wheels stopped them from turning.

Despite all the activity we still managed to lounge around for a few hours in hammocks writing our blog. We were planning to stay for two days and ended up staying for five. This is a place we’ll return to with friends in tow! Any takers?