Advertisement
Published: September 13th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Vang Vieng
There should be a large bold warning stuck on the bus journey taken from
Luang Prabang to
Vang Vieng. The trip involves about five hours of incredibly twisty windy mountain roads which would reduce even the most hardened of stomachs to a bit of mush. Anyone with a hint of travel sickness would not have a chance. Thankfully we had a tip off about this in advance and chose to take a minibus instead of a big bus as we liked the idea of the whole vehicle turning the same way at the same time. We were also lucky to be seated near the front of the van with a good view out of the windscreen so our stomachs had advance warning. Needless to say, it was impossible to read on this journey!
Vang Vieng has been set up perfectly for backpackers with dozens of cheap guesthouses, bars and loads of outdoor activities. It's so hot there, there's not much to do except for eat, drink & sleep. Which is what we did - A LOT - for about three days. The town is also known for its TV bars which show around the clock episodes of
Friends and Family Guy. The bars are set up with raised wooden platforms with mattresses and pillows so you can sit or lie down and watch the telly. We enjoyed a few lunchtimes and evenings watching a few episodes of Friends.
Our guesthouse was situated on the side of the town's unused airfield runway. This runway was used by the Americans during the Vietnam war, who referred to it as Lima site 6.
Tubing
The main attraction of the town (apart from its laid back backpacker town status) is tubing on the Nam Song river. Basically you pay your kip for a large tyre, get a tuk tuk ride 2km up the road and jump in the river. There are bars lining the shore of the river that have swing ropes or water slides to entice you in to drink there. When you float down the river in your tyre the bar owners will throw out ropes to you to grab hold of and drag yourself into the bars. If you miss the rope you keep floating down the river..a bad move if all of your friends got the rope! After you've made your way down the
Tubing
Brent had a go at this swing but the pic didn't turn out :-( watery pub crawl you then have a 20-30 minute stretch of floating down the river until you get to the main town and you have to haul yourself out of the water. The exit isn't well advertised so you have to be weary. If you drink too much and fall asleep you may wake up in China...!
We met two boys from Sydney, Scott and Greg, on the tuk tuk ride over and they ended up hanging out with us for the entire trip which was nice. We had a hilarious time trying to steer our large tyres towards the bars..with various people getting taken by different currents, going faster or slower, and falling victim to whatever the river dictated. We had a good game of pool on the world's worst (see photo) pool table, a game of slingshot at beer cans and some beer ping pong.
To get your deposit on the type back you have to return it by 6pm. We managed to get back at 5.50pm and sat across the road watching everyone else struggle to make it back on time. We were absolutely knackered by the end of it, so after a shower and
On yer bike..
Errr...tube.. dinner we were off to bed not long after!
Vientiane
We organised to catch the 1.30pm "VIP" bus from Vang Vieng to Laos' capital city
Vientiane the next day, allowing us a sleep in and time to pack our bags (we sure weren't packing them after tubing!!). The trip was supposed to take three hours according to the tour operator, but took about 5 1/2 (surprise surprise!). We got a transfer from the bus station to our hotel for the next two nights.
There's not that much to do in the capital, as evidenced by Lonely Planet listing a BOWLING ALLEY under things to do in Vientiane. One thing that was a must to see was
Buddha Park.
Buddha Park
Xieng Khuan, more commonly known as Buddha Park lies in a field by the Mekong river about 24 km away from Vientiane. The park was created in 1958 by a man named Bunleua Sulilat - a yogi - priest - shaman who thought it would be fun to create loads of concrete Buddhist and Hindu statues and put them all together in a field. To get there is relatively easy and you don't need the
Riverside bars
They pull you in...literally 120,000kip tuk tuk most tuk tuk drivers say you do! All we did was walk for about 15 minutes to the central bus station and pay 5000kip for the number 14 bus which stops right outside the park. It also goes via Thai imigration so do not get alarmed as we did! We then got a bus back into town and spend some time walking around the centre before returning to our guesthouse and getting ready for the next day.
Back to Bangkok
We had booked the overnight train from Vientiane to Bangkok the next day. We had a pickup from our guesthouse in a tuk tuk at 3pm which transferred us to Laos immigration. Once we had stamped out and paid our 10,000kip exit fee (!) we boarded a train which went over the Thai -Lao Friendship Bridge and stopped 15 minutes later at Thai immigration at Nong Khai train station. This is also the first railway link to Laos.
As a side note, everyone in Laos drives on the right, while everyone in Thailand drives on the left, so at the end of the bridge traffic lights control the switch over to the other side!
Just chillin'
A relaxing float down the river We made it through Thai immigration okay (one of the few countries we do not need a visa for..yah!) and boarded our overnight train. We had chosen to pay the premium for a first class sleeper as this gave us our own private two-bunk cabin. The cheaper 2nd class is four bunk and there would be no security for our belongings and more importantly, not enough space to put all of our stuff (which is quite a lot now!). The cabin was much more modern and had more room than the train in Egypt. It also consisted of one large seat (which would turn into two bunk beds after dinner) a small sink in the corner and a small table. To save money we had purchased our own food at the mini-mart the day before but Brent had also purchased a celebratory "we're back in Thailand" bottle of Chang and Leo to drink on the train. When the lady came into the cabin and we declined to purchase any of the overpriced food, she put her hand on our beers and asked "but you have beer?" Obviously she thought we could not afford to eat, yet drinking was perfectly
This pool table
had definitely seen better days (didn't stop Cath from beating all three men!) okay!
We settled in for a good night's sleep for Brent & a bad night's sleep for Cath and woke up the next morning not long before our arrival in
Bangkok.
There was just enough time in Bangkok for Brent to buy a couple more knock-off labels and to watch the All Blacks once again beat the Aussies in their final Tri-Nations game (Yah!) before we were off again on a flight to Melbourne, via an overnight stopover in
Kuala Lumpur.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.097s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0488s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
mum couch
non-member comment
life jackets
I think I would need a life jacket to do the tubing!! loved the statue park what fun you both had with them. love Mum ( Dad ) Couch