Here in Vang Vieng


VangVieng

 

The bus journey from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng was picturesque though stomach churning. Twisting and turning through the smog covered peaks, I gazed in wonder at the jagged cliff faces and green hills disappearing into the clouds. We passed through tiny hillside villages, women carrying heavy loads using a strap around their forehead, and wild pigs foraging for food. Occasionally my heart leapt up to my throat and I grabbed on to Matt as we rounded a sharp bend and I looked down at a sheer drop! As the hills receded we passed rice paddies, cabbage fields, farmers manually ploughing their land and grazing buffalo. It was beautiful and definitely worth feeling slightly queasy for!

 

As we entered Vang Vieng, the beauty diminished as the thumping beat of dance music filled our ears and a crane obscured our view of the surrounding mountains. The Beer Lao and buckets are still flowing and the ghosts of parties past are out to play. The intervention of the Laotian government has made Vang Vieng a very a weird place; the idea was to convert VV from an un-Godly party-town into an action-adventure paradise.

 

Right now, it’s doing neither job brilliantly. There’s a curfew, so partying often looks a bit forced as people try to have as much fun as they can before 11.30pm, but the town still looks hungover; it’s grimy, busy with drug addled characters (tourists and staff) and F.R.I.E.N.D.S and Family Guy play on huge screens and loop for those who had so much the night before that they need to simulate some kind of duvet day to recover.

 

As for the action-adventure paradise, in town the touts and tour operators are still a little ragged around the edges and often unfriendly. Out of town, despite the undoubted beauty of the surrounding country you can’t go tubing or Kayaking without being assaulted by club music, given a free shot of Whisky, and generally being encouraged to drink every 50m along the first 500m of the river. It couldn’t be clearer that the intentions of the proprietors is to get you out of the water, into their bar, and ideally not have you get back in until you’re sloshed enough to organise a 10 minute Songtaew back to town instead of the lazy 3 hour drift it takes on the river in the dry season.

 

VangVieng

 

We also decided to take a walk out to the ‘Blue Lagoon’, a swimming and caving spot 7km out of town. The walk was beautiful and very interesting. On either side of us, dramatic cliffs provided a really stunning backdrop for the villages and rest spots along the road. It took a couple of hours to get out there, but we knew we were drawing close when we heard the familiar sound of dance music. Yes, unfortunately the ‘Blue Lagoon’, which we’d imagined as a peaceful, deserted spot in the jungle, has fallen victim to the old party scene.

 

That said, we did spend a few genuinely relaxing hours swimming, eating, napping and reading all the while nicely sheltered from the sun by the little raised platforms that have been built there. It struck us all how many families were enjoying the Lagoon. It’s right around Laos (and Thai) New Year so many groups were together having a picnic and a day out with the kids. Although it wasn’t quite what we were expecting it was still a really nice day out, and on the beautiful walk back we even stopped for a drink and were given some traditional sticky rice whisky (complete with small snake jammed into the bottle for extra je ne c’est quoi ) 

 

VangVieng

 

VangVieng

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