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Published: February 3rd 2007
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Spinning around on the Nam Song River Vang Vieng was one of the most pleasant surprises on our journey so far and we ended up staying twice as long as we’d originally planned. We'd read reports of it being very touristy and that the restaurants were soulless and just showed episodes of Friends, but away from the main strip it was really lovely.
We found a cheap and rustic little hut perched overlooking the river, reached by some very precarious steps you wouldn’t want to navigate while drunk. It is called Nam Song Bungalows, run by the friendliest guy you could ask for. Arnie would do anything for you, and gave excellent advice about the local area. He was always around with a smile and really made our time there extra special.
When you first arrive into the sleepy little village it doesn’t seem that there is going to be an awful lot to keep you occupied, but that could not be further from the truth.
We hired a scooter for a day and although it had four gears, Bronson managed to keep it on both the road and the dirt track with ease. We spent the day visiting caves in the surrounding mountain
One of the rare bridges that was free to cross
The locals were very enterprising in their ways to get a slice of the tourism pie range, the highlight of which was the water cave, which, as the name implies, is filled with water. You actually strip down to your swimmers, don a head torch, grab an inner tube and pull yourself through the darkness by the rope attached to the roof of the cave. There is about 5 feet between the water and the cave roof and it is pitch black. Pretty exciting stuff.
On another day we hired mountain bikes and cycled out to the blue lagoon. True to its name the water is a glorious turquoise colour and very inviting, especially after cycling an hour to get there in the midday sun.
Strangely, no one was swimming, and it seemed everyone there was sitting around and waiting for something to happen. Bronson took it upon himself to be that something, and quickly stripped off his clothes and swung gaily into the water. This seemed to be the signal everyone had been waiting for and pretty soon everyone was having a great time trying to make the most acrobatic entrances possible.
We spent an hour exploring a completely non-commercial cave about 100m above the lagoon. No light except for our head-torches,
Vang Vieng Bungalows
Accommodation here was very reasonably priced, with lots by the river. no guides, no signs to tell you where to go, and no easily discernible paths. Sharon loved it (S: It felt like we could have been the first people to discover the cave, there was no trace of human disturbance, and once you got about 200 metres in the daylight was barely visible and it was eerily quiet. Just you and the sound of the air gently going in and out of your lungs) but it took Bronson about five minutes to confirm his distaste for caves and everything about them (B: Believe me, there will be no caving adventure blogs from this man, and the first movie I am watching when I get back to Perth is going to be the Descent.)
On our final day we met up with Kein and Liz whom we’d befriended at the Blue Lagoon and hired inner tubes to float down the river for the day. This is great fun. A tuk tuk takes you about 5 km from town and drops you off on the banks of the river. You climb into the tubes and lazily float downstream. The day is spent floating from bar to bar, stopping at one for
Sharon goes exploring
but chickens out and comes back out when it gets dark a drink, another for some food and even a game of cards with other travellers.
All the bars have built crazy swings and flying foxes over the water, with each seemingly higher and more precarious than the last! We marvelled with other travellers how they would never be allowed to build a structure as slap-dash as this in any Western country, as they really did look quite improvisational (read, "dodgy"), with branches tied on for support with string, but at the same time we let that stop us hurling ourselves off them into the deep water.
We chose the bars on the basis of how impressive their trapeze swing was, and also the quality of their booming sound system (more often than not playing Bob Marley, not sure why?!) and spent an hour or so lazing on their comfy bamboo decking overlooking the river.
Slime fights and flipping into the freezing waters all made for a fantastic day out and come sunset we were really sad to be packing up and preparing to move on again.
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Eric
non-member comment
awesome pictures there!
Is \ was the water clean? Cheers Eric