Is Vang Vieng a place for party lover?

The journey from Vientiane to Vang Viang took 5 hours with VIP bus, the fare was THB 200. Seriously it was not a pleasant journey at all. The bus supposed to depart at 10 am, but was delayed until almost 11, that’s was nothing since we were on holiday and what’s the rush anyway. Along the way there was no proper road at all, it was all bumpy, uphill and downhill, I still curious how did the guy next to me managed to sleep since before the bus departed until we arrived I have to wake him up!

Why I want to come to Vang Vieng? There was one day I was googlying about fun place in south east Asia, and this place came up. I’ve been living in south east asia for all my life and I felt kind of embarrassed when most of European know about this place and I don’t. Hence its time to see, what’s good in Vang Vieng.

When I arrived here, its very small town, not really town but like a small farmer village. Its remind me of my grandfather place in Fang, Chiangmai  http://wikitravel.org/en/Fang , nearby the hills side was the settlement of Lao native people (Hmong). Don’t expect Starbucks or McD here, the local can speak a little bit English, well some of them. As I’m typing this the whole village has no electricity, the hotel owner said its happen many times.

We stayed in Laos Haven Hotel, its cheap around MYR90++ via www.agoda.com inclusive of breakfast. Room was pretty basic but comfortable with air conditioner and hot shower (not really hot, not even warm but its okay). What’s great about this hotel is the hotel owner, Mr.Michael he’s very friendly and kind. I don’t think he’s a local, he speak in English with Malaysian accent (u know the ‘lah’ word), I assume he's Malaysian but he's Singaporean actually

That evening we ride a bike to explore whole Vang Vieng, it took less than 20 mins and we explored all of it! What I read about Vang Vieng was, the place is the greatest tubing party, even better than Koh Phangan in Thailand. We were looking for party places, its really nothing! We walk to one bar with hammock, only 2 British guy (more like boys), we asked them where the party place is and they took us to one place. Its not a party place at all, it’s a bar that selling weed/opium/magic mushroom/happy pizza, you know the chilling kind of place with reggae music. Those british boys look very high on weed, since we already there we tried mushroom shake and opium. Seriously I don’t know what’s went wrong, but nothing happen to us. We walked to the hotel feeling sober than ever!

Then only we found out that since 2012, the Laos government has banned party activities in here. We were told that a lot of tourist get drunk / high and swim and tubing end up drowning and died. Some of the local said that the spirit of the river were angry with the bad tourist culture (drunk people walking with bucket of liquor, girls walking around with bikinis). Well, we were disappointed of course, but that’s alright because there’s a lot to offer in here.

Next morning after breakfast we decided to do 1) tubing along the river 2) caving 3) swim at Bluelagoon. On the way to Bluelagoon with motorbike was really challenging, it was raining last night the road was muddy and slippery , the bumpy road all the way for 7 KM. We felt from the bike once, it was really funny! Along the way the view was magnificent! The mountains, the paddy field, everything just awesome. When we reach blue lagoon, the water was really blue! I never seen something like that before, it was really amazing. While I was swimming suddenly its rain heavily, after the rain stop we went back to the village for lunch then back to the hotel for shower. We can’t go to the cave due to the rain the pavement was really slippery and I just wore crocs shoe. We can’t do tubing as well, as the river flow was really strong after the rain. It was really the wrong season, because middle of the year is raining season in here, the good time to come is during dry season which is October on words. Mr.Michael told us that dry season its not hot season its winter! In the morning the weather could be as low as 10 degrees! 

The place is not for the faint hearted

The view along the way, trust me in real life its better than this picture

 

Blue Lagoon, its really blue!

 

Jump from the top of the tree if you dare! The water was really deep.

Since we got nothing to do, we went to traditional Lao massage, the massage cost KIP 60,000 ( MYR 24) for 1 hour, its was good after walking around for 1 day. Its similar to Thai massage, but I think I like Lao massage more! After massage we went for walking around nearby river, the river flow was still very strong, we wouldn’t dare to take a risk.

Hmong (hill tribe) lady weaving the fabric

 

Its only THB200 per piece, I was not bargain at all, its already cheap, its a hardwork and its art!

 

That night since we were so tired, we just bought baguette sandwich from the roadside stall, I must say that was the best baguette sandwich I ever had! Now its remind me that those British boys told me that they only eat baguette sandwich here , its so damn delicious, I just assume they can’t stand local food which is too spicy for them. A must try if you come here, any roadside stall sandwich.

Vang Vieng has a lot to offer, but if you looking for party place, don’t bother to come here, go to Koh Phi Phi or Koh phangan. There’s so many things I wanted to do but unable to do due to bad weather, so we’ll see each other again Vang Vieng.