January 7, 2017

Vang Vieng has an outdated reputation as a backpacker paradise of drinking and partying.  Five years ago the communist government got sick of the number of deaths from alcohol and drug use and shut the town down for a few months.  Now, Vang Vieng has rebounded as an adventure destination, with caving, hiking, biking and rock climbing in a jaw-droppingly gorgeous setting.  The karst mountains ringing the town are on par with Yosemite and Halong Bay for their ability to stun.

The view from our balcony at the Silver Naga Hotel, looking over the Nam Song river and the karsts around Vang Vieng.

There is still a backpacker scene.  Floating in inner tubes down the slow flowing Nam Song from riverside bar to riverside bar actually has an odd appeal once we are on the river.  A Rihanna remix segue ways awkwardly into a Spice Girl song from cheesy bars, where twenty-somethings encourage tubers to shotgun a BeerLao.  But, weirdly enough, as a break from days of temples and jungle hiking, it is really fun, and an unexpected culture shock.  Of course, we are 20 years older than everyone else there.

We meet a British couple, Pippa and Alex, who are on an extended vacation.  After multiple BeerLaos and a hit from a laughing gas balloon (who knew that was a thing), we are buddies for the day.  We stay too long at a riverside bar, and have to scramble out of the river before our exit point as the sun goes down.  Rescue tuk-tuks wait at the side of the river for just these kind of drunken malingerers.

The four of us have dinner and then barhop afterwards, starting at one of the riverside bars with floating platforms on the Nam Song, and ending up in town at Sakura Bar, a quintessential backpacker bar with bad pop music that is packed with Asian and Western backpackers sweating and dancing with a glazed drunkenness.

Our only hangover morning of the trip is a little rough.

We bike to Tham Phu Kham cave that day, and climb one of the karsts for a view over the Vang Vieng valley.  In the humid heat, I sweat out the rest of my alcohol as we climb a vertical pitch that is not for the faint of heart…or the recently inebriated.

Hiking up the karst.

At the top.  (of the karst)

The first cave of the day starts with a tiny dark hole, on a ladder of slippery tree branches descending into pitch black.  With one dim head lamp and our iPhone, we clamber over slippery rocks and down additional ladders.  This is less my vision of spelunking, and more like a horror movie.  But it’s fun, in a scary way.  The heat rises inside the cave, in the still air.  When we climb back out into the light, I am happy to spend a half hour swimming in the unimaginatively named Blue Lagoon #3.

The dirt roads wind through pastures and jungle, and are severely bumpy with rocks.  My ass is painfully sore by the end of the day.  At that moment, I never want to see a bicycle seat again.

Oww, my ass hurts.

Dusk in Vang Vieng.

We end the evening watching bats fly out of caves in the karst, and eat an amazing meal at the Lao Valhalla Guesthouse.  The owner seats us, and her daughter brings us one of the best meals of the trip, unpretentious Lao and Vietnamese noodle soups and stir fried pork.

The next day we hike for a few hours, through a H’mong village and the countryside, to the winding Snail Cave, which meanders into the mountain for 7 kilometers.  Cavers have died from lack of oxygen when they ventured too far into the cave. At Water Cave, we take inner tubes and pull ourselves along hundreds of meters of rope, floating below a low, dramatic cave ceiling.  It is a Pirates of the Caribbean experience, with only our headlights to light the cave walls.  We portage the tubes over one section and then haul ourselves along until the far end of the cave, a deep pool of water where I can’t touch the bottom.  We flick off our lights for 30 seconds, turning the world into an abrupt black void buried under thousands of meters of limestone and rock.

We kayak back to Vang Vieng, down the dry season Nam Song.  I blame the weight of Angel’s ass for almost getting us beached on the rocks more than once.

I’m getting a little better about taking his compliments.  I don’t automatically think “How can you, of all people, think that?” when he tells me I’m handsome.

We order a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc for our last night in Vang Vieng and drink it on our balcony.  The view from our room is the postcard of Vang Vieng, with the river drifting lazily below us and the sun setting behind the towering karsts.  It is a perfect ending to our days in Vang Vieng.

We order a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc for our last night in Vang Vieng and drink it on our balcony.  The view from our room is the postcard of Vang Vieng, with the river drifting lazily below us and the sun setting behind the towering karsts.  It is a perfect ending to our days in Vang Vieng.

Sunsets and Sauvignon Blanc.

Okay, we took a lot of pictures from our balcony.