We visited Vang Vieng in Laos in July 2022. The town is situated between stunning mountains, which as we were there in the rainy season, where very lush an green.
I think in interest of being truthful and open about our experience in Laos, we will first say that our expectations for Vang Vieng were actually very different to what it turned out to be. Friends and family that had visited in the past spoke of the party vibes and liveliness that can be found there. Although we are not the most party people, we were excited to get amongst it all and try the famous tipsy tubing. This is where you float down the river on a tube and stop at various pubs and bars on the way. However once we arrived we could see that this isn’t the place it used to be.
Locals told us that a lot of bars and drinking activities had to shut down, in an attempt to crack down on the partying and to make Vang Vieng less touristy. However, we also think that Covid had a huge impact on the area, as we could see construction projects completely stopped, closed down restaurants, bars and shops and far less tourists than ever before.
With that being said, Vang Vieng is still a beautiful place to visit and there is still plenty to do to keep you occupied during your stay.
How we got there
We travelled from Luang Prabang by the new highspeed train. It took just 2 hours and was comfortable enough for the short journey. Once you get into the Vang Vieng train station, you will need to hop into a Tuk Tuk to take you into the main town. We shared our ride with about 8 other travellers.
Things to do in the area
Hot Air Balloon
This was an interesting one for us. Neither Dan nor I had particularly wanted to do a hot air balloon. However, once stepping out of the Vang Vieng train station, the first thing we saw was the magnificent site of a hot air balloon, floating over the town. This made us change our mind. We walked to a travel agency close to us and booked onto a 4pm ‘sunset’ hot air balloon ride. We actually can’t remember the exact amount we paid, but it was about $80 per person. We were driven by Tuk Tuk to the launch site where they had begun blowing up the balloon. We hoped on with about 10 other tourists and began our ascent. As we had never done something like this, we were quite scared, but once we were up, the views were spectacular and our fear melted away….
….Until we noticed that we had started descending quite quickly and were now very close to the houses and buildings of Vang Vieng. We spotted locals coming out of their houses and pointing at us, which made it even more worrying. The cherry on top, was when we were clearly going to land soon, most likely not by choice and saw ground staff running through fields to get to us before landing (safely, but sketchily) in a random persons garden! An experience to say the least!
Kayaking, caving and blue lagoon cave tour
We decided to do a day tour and we are very glad we did. The tour we choose started off with kayaking down the river, and there was even a bit of white water to go down. Don’t worry though nothing scary at all. We kayaked to Elephant cave. There we had a look around with our guide, before going into the tubing cave, Tham Nam, where you float through part of it on a rubber ring and walk the rest.
After that we had a BBQ lunch cooked for us, which was lovely. Finally, we kayaked back down the river and jumped in a Tuk Tuk which took us to the Blue Lagoon. We had an hour to roam that by ourselves before being dropped off at our hotel.
Have a beer on the river
I normally hate when I am looking up things to do and they suggest have a beer or something along those lines. However, in Vang Vieng there are a tonne of great bars and restaurants where you can actually sit on ‘floating’ platforms, which is really fun. When we were there it heavily rained but luckily, we had one that was undercover and it actually made the experience even more fun!
Tham Chang cave
We walked to the Tham Chang cave from the centre of Vang Vieng and it took about 25 minutes. At one point you have to cross a golden bridge to get across the river, however when arriving to the crossing, we were met with rubble from the remnants of the bridge and a man with a floating platform attached to a line to take us over. Always expect the unexpected in Laos!
Once over the river we just needed to walk 5 minutes to get to the entrance of the cave. There are a good view steps to get there. We were quite shocked by how big the cave was, and the cool temperature was an absolute delight after the hot walk. The last boat (or should we say floating platform) crossing is at 4pm, so make sure you don’t miss that, or you will be walking a long way to get to a bridge to get back over the river.
Go to Nam viewpoint
Full disclosure we didn’t actually end up going here as we were short on time. However, from the photos we have seen it looks like there is a great view from the top. There is also a motorbike placed at the very top which makes for a great photo.
Visit the three lagoons
As mentioned above visited the blue lagoon 1 as part of a tour, however there are also two others that we didn’t get to visit. If you are looking for somewhere to cool off after a hot day then why not visit the lagoons!
Climbing
We joined a half day climbing session in Vang Vieng. We were part of a group of 7 and had two instructors. We knew half the people in the session already because Laos wasn’t very touristy at all, so we would often bump into the same people more than once and we are still seeing them now in Vietnam too!
The climbing morning started with a very steep scramble just to get to the climbing location. I will admit, for me this was a struggle in the heat and meant that my legs were quite tired by the time we had got there. Once there we were all given the opportunity to try out 5 different climbing routes if we wanted and were able to choose if we wanted to skip some, which is what I ended up doing, as I am not a very strong climber. You are dropped back at your hostel around 1pm that day.
We got very muddy on the way down, so were very excited for a shower before heading out for lunch!
Overall Vang Vieng was a very pleasant place to visit. Although we were expecting it to be a bit livelier, we were glad we got to see it during the rainy season, where the scenery is more beautiful and were able to do everything without a load of tourists doing the same thing. We would suggest that you would need 4 days to visit this area, so three nights, so that you can really explore.
Without A Paddle Travel 