The Adventure Hub of Laos, Vang Vieng

The past 4 days in Vang Vieng, Laos’ adventure hub, has been filled with all sorts of activities including buggying, kayaking, cave walking and cave tubing, viewpoint trekking, ziplining, lagoon swimming and of course scooting around.

The town is connected to Luang Prabang via the newly built Chinese railway, a much quicker route than the 4-5 hour mountain bus drive before 2020. The train took less than one hour and was far more comfortable than any European train let alone a bus. On first impressions, the town has a wild western feel with its bars set against a mountainous backdrop along a main dusty street.

In the afternoon after arriving in the town, we hired a scooter and took a ride to the west side of Vang Vieng into the valley. Here the roads gradually turned into dusty dirt tracks with small street side villages scattered around surrounded by miles of rice fields. We stopped off at the first blue lagoon to have a swim. Unfortunately, we found the blue lagoon rather underwhelming and far too crowded for our liking with lots of children which ruined the initial idea of a tranquil lagoon experience.

The next day we rented kayaks and a personal guide who took us down the fast flowing Mekong river, stopping off at two caves along the way. The first was a walk through a lit up cave. The second cave was partly filled with water so we each took a tube and pulled ourselves inside along a line. The cave quickly became dark, pitch black in fact. We walked in further with our torches, eventually seeing bats hanging and flying around. Afterwards we kayaked back, grabbed some lunch and went to pick up our buggy for the afternoon. We had the buggy for four hours and within that timeframe we explored more dirt tracks surrounded by farmland and mountains, a truly beautiful backdrop. We drove far into the valley, really off road stopping at Blue Lagoon 5, a lagoon which tourists rarely venture out to considering how far off road it is. We also visited and enjoyed a dip at Blue Lagoon 2. Both blue lagoons were beautiful and thankfully had far fewer people so we could enjoy them in peace.

One thing we've noticed in Laos are the roads which are tarmacked in town however they transition into gravel dirt tracks (without any road markings) as you go further into the valley. Along the dirt tracks we came across a number of rural villages, surrounded by rice fields. The area was clearly reliant on agriculture as there were lots of cows to contend with on the tracks. The cows didn’t seem bothered by motorbikes or buggies, so we had to manoeuvre around them to get past. As we drove past the villages, there were lots of kids playing and happily waving to us, some also signalling to join in a round of 'rock paper scissors' whilst driving! Another child, perhaps the age of 7 or 8 years old, was walking a large bull with massive horns by a rope.

We've been super lucky with the weather, no rain as of yet. Vang Vieng is a place of beauty, but as with many other places, it is far quieter than normal and you can see the impact of this on the town itself.Leia mais