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Published: April 9th 2009
We have made it to Luang Prabang in the north of Laos after almost a week in Vang Vieng.
If you have checked out the last entry you will already have seen that we were in a pretty magical part of the world. It truly is a paradise and we were pleasantly surprised after varying reports on the township.
Vang Vieng was top on my must do list after I read about tubing down the Nam Song River in a blog by my ‘world-traveling with kids idols’ sixintheworld (www.sixintheworld.com) so apart from creating family unity (still under development), the general travel-Asia experience (great) and the big 40 at Angkor Wat, the day of tubing was a priority .
Vang Vieng is a small township that has become famous for the tubing experience and is described by the Lonely Planet as now being a rite of passage for young backpackers mainly for the tubing experience which combines tubing with swinging from Laos style home made trapeezes into the river. Of course young backpackers are synonymous with party, party , party and we had heard that the town was noisy, full of drunk backpackers who were well catered for with
a variety of ‘happy ingredients’ (in their shakes and pizzas) and that the tubing sometimes degenerated into mud slinging. Now I know that some of you are thinking hmm, sounds okay to me, but obviously for us this doesn’t really sound like a family holiday destination so we prepared ourselves for just a two day stop.
What we actually found was a fun town with a stretch of quiet hotels for the more discerning traveller right on the Nam Song River with amazing views and lots to do in the spectacular surroundings. We stayed almost a week but could have easily stayed a lot longer.
The bus ride from Vientiene was through some spectacular scenery although just as you became mesmerized by the beauty of the landscape you were quickly and painfully reminded that ‘VIP bus’ does not always equate to ‘bus with suspension‘. Arriving in the town made the three hour trip well worth it as you just have to walk a block from the bus station to realise that you are in a pretty special place.
As we were a little restricted with ‘me with a bad leg Mackie’ water activities were postponed for the
first few days (aka not at all for Mac) and tubing was put off until the last day. Instead we took in some of the caves and water holes around the town with the Girards (the family from Quebec). The first day we went to a small water hole on a stream which flowed through a cave which meant that we could swim in to the cave, so with a little coaxing (and screaming) the girls also made it into the cave which was a pretty special achievement!
We then took on a couple of hundred steps up to a huge cave, Tham Jang which has been used as a hiding bunker in the 19th century from the Chinese. We had a stop near the top of the steps while Elise and I gave first aid to an elderly Lao lady who feinted sitting on the steps. We later saw the lady walking through the cave, they breed them tough here! The cave was huge with electric lighting and not so much screaming this time!
The next day we headed out to ‘blue lagoon’, Tham Phu Kham’ which was pretty close to the most amazing place that you
could ever swim, also a great tuk tuk ride through the countryside. We first did the hike up the hill through the bush to a cave, which was tough work especially for Mitchy who was carrying ‘me with a bad leg Mackie” on his shoulders. The cave was huge, but again with a bit of coaxing (and screaming) all of the kids made it in. Mac was quite happy and the others seemed to be gaining confidence with the caving experience. We saw a huge sleeping Buddah (they pop up everywhere) in the cave which was beautiful.
After our hard trek up and down the mountain we were able to enjoy the blue lagoon for a swim, trapeze and jump off the tree into the water, all of which I am proud to say the kids and I did, apart from Mac. Not wanting to get all David Attenborough, but again one of the highlights were the butterflies and dragon flies which were spectacular, flying across the blue water they looked absolutely magical. We ate lunch at the lagoon from a little wooden shack, the food was great and how they make such delicious meals in these tiny places
I don’t know, we also bought a beautiful silk weaving at the open air huts where you can see the women using their looms. We left just after the ‘young people’ had slept off their night before and come out to the lagoon inspiring my kids in ways that I wish they hadn’t, jumping off the highest tree branches and doing acrobatics with the trapeeze! One young Welsh guy said that he had been to Tassie and that it was amazing, I admit I felt a patriotic rush!
We spent another day on an organized tour which we haven’t done so far on the trip but we had a great time. On the way we visited a cave which has a formation with the appearance of an elephant. There was also a dying Buddah, which looks very much like the sleeping Buddah but has one hand under his head rather than two. The children are really enjoying seeing the Buddah statues and working out the various postures, their favourite is the Buddah Naga which has the protective ‘serpant‘ over the Buddah. The next part of the trip was tubing into a cave which for us involved quite a bit
of screaming and not so much distance. Mac (quite happy), Grace, Olivia and I had a second attempt until I realized that the rope that I was using to pull us along in the dark wasn’t actually attached to anything and I seemed to have an ‘on the blink’ headset torch. I did have a ‘tube about’ by myself on a third attempt in the cave, waiting for our group to come back which was great, but odd as I’m not really into confined spaces. Perhaps it was the absence of screaming children!!
After a delicious lunch on the banks of the river we headed off to kayak down the Nam Song which was fabulous. We have done a little bit of kayaking but always on fairly smooth waters and while the Nam Song wasn’t a raging torrent it did have some small rapids which were great fun (for the grandparents reading we all had appropriate sized, new looking flotation devices, strange but true!!). Mitchy and Finn were the first to capsize but I think they actually enjoyed it, Benoit and two of his girls also went over but the rest of us managed to stay afloat, not
so hard for Mac and I who had a guide (who kept trying to scare Mac by making waves, standing up in the boat and making the boat stop and start but Mac just kept saying ’do it again, do it again’). The girls also had a guide so they were well looked after although Olivia’s did make her paddle while he rested and you can imagine her face!!!
We kayaked past the tubing bars which was an experience, coming around the corner of the peaceful and beautiful Nam Song to hear ‘Land Down Under’ (an oldie but a goodie) blasting up the river, and a huge balcony of people drinking and at the next bar dancing was pretty surreal. We stopped at one of the bars for a rest and got to watch some of the trapezing and also a few of the people who braved the water slide. The kids felt very hard done by that they weren’t allowed on the slide but will understand and be grateful for it when they are older I am sure (well not really that sure, in fact not sure at all). Apparently the guy running the slide told the kids
‘no problem, no problem, lets go!’ and so parental concerns should have been alleviated.
The river was beautiful and we were able to see the local people who rely on it so much. Young boys fishing with home made spear guns, kids diving for fresh water mussels, families bathing and kids swimming with their gorgeous little bare bodies, hence Mac shouting out of the kayak “Sabadee, sabadee! (hello, hello) Hey! You need some pants on!”
We didn’t have time in Vang Vieng to do the motorized long boats which we passed on the way, but after seeing one of them motoring along with one hand and bailing water with the other, we were quite pleased! Mind you the passengers didn’t seem to be too concerned!
Our nights were taken up with swimming in the river with the local kids, (one night bathing in the river which was great fun), watching the unbelievable sunsets and eating great food plus a pizza and movie night for the children while Mitchy and I learnt a card game from Quebec for us (the pizza that I was assured would take 10 minutes took 2 hours, luckily the guys could wait in
a bar for it!)
We left the tubing for the last day as we wanted Mac’s foot to be as healed as possible. We had great success with the dressing and plastic bag combination in the kayak so on the foot front we were prepared.
I’m not sure what attracted me to the tubing experience but I think it was the idea of a lazy adventure, a day where there was nothing to do but drift. And, after maybe six months of dreaming about it, the day was here and in a sense, the pressure on.
In my mind our day stared by eating at the Organic Mulberry farm before we spent the day drifting down the river in perfect conditions and ate pancakes in the town at the end of our day. So when we walked into the tubing centre and were greeted by the older mothers with a big laugh and then piled into the tuk tuk with a ‘good luck!’ we started to worry. As the tuk tuk engine started we felt the first drops of rain and then as we took off down the road we heard the rumble of thunder, hmm, this
Deb Pre First Attempt
This isn't What I Expectedwasn’t going as planned! We couldn’t even see where the Mulberry Farm was supposed to be and by the time we got to the river the rain was so heavy that all we could do was laugh, as did the people at the first bar when we turned up!
We thought that we would just try and sit the weather out and then make our attempt but as the lightning and thunder went on I thought I had better just get my tube and get in for a brief go just so that I had actually ‘tubed’. But just when I thought the weather could not get worse I hit the water with my tube and the wind started! Sun umbrellas started blowing away, the river turned a bit wild and there was nothing for it but to get out.
The blokes at the bar felt so sorry for me that they lit a fire, started by burning a plastic bottle so while it helped to warm me up I’m not sure what it did for our lungs. As the weather slowly improved I hit the water again and as I paddled about the sun came out and
the skies cleared, we were off!!
The tubing bars were all empty and relatively free of music so it was a fairly peaceful start to the trip, but when we heard the call ’Beer Lao, beer lao’ and were pulled in from the river with a bamboo pole on a rope we knew we were tubing!! We asked a young girl the time and her answer was ‘no time’ and that is how it felt. We were pretty hungry at this stage but unfortunately the bar was being run by three kids under about 14 and so it was drinks only! Our kids were in heaven as there were some newly hatched chicks for them to play with as well as a pool table and sling shot to shoot beer lao cans!
When we hit the water again we were pretty hungry so found another bar, although they had no food they did have fruit smoothies, just no fruit!! They did however have Lao-lao (whisky) which Mitchy was given a shot of and then one poured for me of which I only had a sip. I think Mitchy’s description of nail polish remover was pretty close!
We
had thought that we might only tube part of the way but actually kept going and made it back to town watching the people on the river side and the butterflies and the kids collecting water weed. The kids had a great time and the girls now proudly wear ‘tubing in Vang Vieng’ shirts that they have seen on all the cool young traveling girls in Laos.
We made it back to town about five hours after we started and ate pancakes on the road. So after the odds had been against it, it was pretty much a perfect day! And really overall a perfect experience in Vang Vieng.
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sal swan
non-member comment
Hi from swans
Hello you 6 mad Mitchells. Sorry have not been in touch yet. Everything sounds and looks awesome. I think you are all amazing. Good to hear that you have the occasional domestic disagreement or I would think you were making it all up. Have heaps more to ask and will try to think of something interesting to tell you. Will write a proper message soon. Miss you very much. Glad you're not in Thailand still. Stay safe. Love Sal