Vang Vieng

We had a “VIP” bus taking us to Vang Vieng. It was a little more comfortable and even came with a tv playing bad Asian pop music video clips. I had to turn my discman up REALLY loud to drown it out.

When the bus finally pulled up in Vang Vieng we almost missed our stop in what looked like just another dusty village. But when we crossed the huge asphalt square we realised it was a dusty village with lots of touristy shops and cafes.

We found a nice bugalow place by the river to stay in and then went adventuring on the other side of the river. After seeing the mountains and river we realised why people are attracted to the place. We found a rickety looking bridge to cross the river on. Well, it can’t have beeen that rickety because motorbikes somehow drove over it too. Halfway along we were met by a lady collecting a 2000 kip (20 cent) bridge toll. That’s nothing once you’re used to Sydney tolls!

On the other side there was a bungalow and bar playing terrible trance music for some reason. We keep walking through rice paddies and eventually came to the cave only to find it was closing for the day. On the way back over the bridge (another toll), we noticed a man washing his car in the river. Only in Laos.

Vang Vieng has a reputation for backpackers spending extended amounts of time there eating “happy pizzas” and watching reruns of Friends. While we did notice some bars playing Friends, no one seemed to care much for the pizzas.

We went to the Organic Cafe for dinner (much like everyone else in town). There’s a farm slightly out of town that’s associated with the place.

And that was basically all there was to see and do in Vang Vieng in a day. Of course, if we had more time we could’ve drifted down the river in a tube or even kayaked to Vientane.

Instead we took a minibus.