Asian Adventures - Vang Vieng, Laos
The drive from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng was pretty hairy! It was meant to take us 6 hours and ended up only taking 4 hours! We were driving on small roads in the middle of hills with an incredibly steep verge beside the road! There doesn't seem to be any rules for drivers here. Our driver constantly undertook and overtook on corners so it was best just to not look out the windows and concentrate on something else!
Arriving in Vang Vieng we were slightly disappointed as it just seemed pretty dead. However, although the town seemed pretty quiet, the scenery surrounding the town was beautiful! There were lots of hills encircling the whole town which was a gorgeous view. Our hotel we were staying at was The Laos Haven Hotel & Spa, which was neither a haven nor a spa! We had chosen it purely for the pool but soon realised when we arrived we'd made a bad decision booking here. Our room was basic which was fine but as soon as we got in I noticed a big spider (in my eyes) in one of the corners of the room collecting hundreds of flies that were stuck to the ceiling - pretty disgusting! I made Rory get rid of the spider as I couldn't relax having it in our room. The room was really dirty and it was just disappointing thinking someone thought that was acceptable cleanliness to host guests in. The only upside of the hotel was the receptionist, who I think was the owner, was really friendly and helped us decide on things to do whilst in Vang Vieng.
After unpacking we went a wander. Walking along the main street the town felt like a ghost town as there were hardly any people going about and it felt like we were the only tourists here. Vang Vieng used to be a major party stop for all backpackers travelling the area. Their famous activity Tubing was what most people came for. Tubing consisted of floating along the river in a rubber ring and stopping along the way at all the bars on the riverside for a break or just to grab a drink as you floated by. There were swings in the river if people fancied trading up their float for a bit or people would use them to jump into the river from. The river was too shallow to jump into and this mixed with alcohol caused injury and in the worst case scenario resulted in many deaths. The tubing attraction was closed down due to the number of deaths and Vang Vieng lost its tourist numbers. Finally, in 2012 rules were put in place and Tubing was back, but with strict health and safety rules only allowing 4 bars open at one time along the riverside. The tourists then began to come back to Vang Vieng but some say it's never quite recovered and still hasn't got back the liveliness it once had.
Our first stop in Vang Vieng was to find somewhere for lunch. It was so nice being in Laos and being able to get bread again. In Thailand bread seems non-existent and everyone just ate rice and noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner! We found a place that did baguettes so decided to go in there. It was quite a strange dining experience, we ended up being the only people in the place and when our food came the staff all just seemed to disappear through the back. When we were ready to pay the bill we ended up standing for 10 minutes shouting through to someone. They eventually came through and seemed extremely chilled about the fact we could have just left without paying. No way would staff just disappear in Britain, then the customers would just walk away without paying.
We had our first experience of being ill on our trip in Vang Vieng so we didn't manage to do as much as we wanted to do here. Rory hadn't been feeling great on our first day so had gone for a nap in the afternoon whilst I Face Timed my parents but unfortunately the internet wasn't good enough for a video call so we had to just audio call instead. It was good to speak to them as at that point we had been away for 3 weeks. This had been the longest time I had gone without seeing them or speaking to them on the phone. Of course with all our hotels having Wi-Fi and a lot of restaurants and bars which I didn't think would, you could message people back home quite easily.
Pretty much every traveller will have gotten themselves a Lonely Planet book and we were no different. They are definitely such a good investment as they have recommendations for places to stay, places to eat and drink and things to do. They also have tips for tourists for what not to do and information of potential scams you could come across. I was mega organised for coming away on this trip and had looked up every place we were planning on going to and noted down things to do and see already so between my scribbles and our Lonely Planet book we pretty much had an idea of what we all wanted to do in a place before we arrived somewhere.
In our book it suggested a pizza restaurant, Pizza Luka where they cooked all the pizzas from scratch in a wood fired oven. This sounded delicious and we thought we were best sticking to Western food if Rory wasn't feeling well.
The pizzas tasted great! Although we had to wait a while to get our food as their were a couple of tables ahead of us, the food definitely made up for the wait as you knew your food was being made right from scratch after you placed your order. Like before, all the staff were outside at the oven and everyone was just left in the restaurant. You had to try and catch a waiter whilst they were taking other peoples orders or bringing out food if you wanted another drink or the bill which was funny trying to get their attention before they went back outside.
The next day I then woke up feeling unwell so we had a slow start to our day. It had been about a week since we had started taking our malaria tablets so we were thinking it could be the affect of those.
Thankfully, I began feeling slightly better later on so we started to walk to Than Chang Cave which wasn't far from our hotel. This cave was built by the people of Laos to live in during the war. Pretty much the whole town of Vang Vieng would have lived in there. There were loads of steps to climb up that lead to the entrance of the cave.
It was pretty creepy when we first went in as we were the only ones in there. It was really dark inside and only lit by a few lights along the way. You had to be careful walking through the cave, not only for the parts that had a lack of light but also because of big drips of water that would drip down from the ceiling. It was hard to imagine a whole town once living in this one cave!
We had seen signs all over the town advertising a German/Thai restaurant Viman Vang Vieng so chose to go there for our tea that night. The owner had been born in Laos, moved to Germany for twenty odd years, then moved back to Vang Vieng. We chose some of the German options from the menu and went with a currywurst and a schnitzel. The owner was very friendly and came over and spoke to us after our meal. He was really funny telling us that he makes the best green curry in the whole of Laos!! And he absolutely meant it!
The day after we had a Tubing and Kayaking tour booked through our bus tour with Bamba but had to cancel as Rory was still unwell. He did say I could have gone on my own but I said I would stay with him. If I had been ill and he had left me alone in the hotel room all day whilst he went off on a tour I would have been pretty annoyed. I think he was happy with my decision to stay. We stayed in the hotel all day napping and watching movies I had downloaded on my tablet. We were gutted to miss the tubing as that's what everyone comes to Vang Vieng for. Now that the health and safety regulations have been put in place the town has regained its tourist industry and people still travel here to tick Tubing off their bucket list.
After our day of doing nothing I convinced Rory to come out for something to eat. We went to Gary's Irish Bar which was a recommended bar to go to. How come wherever you end up going there's always an Irish bar? Again we stuck with Western food as we hadn't been feeling the best. It's hard when you are feeling ill over here as you have to be a bit more wary over places you eat in. The cleanliness is a different standard than in the UK so if you aren't used to it obviously it can make you unwell.
The bar opposite Gary's, Sukura, is the most famous bar in Vang Vieng. In the evening there's an hour where all drinks are free and then Happy Hour is straight after so the street was filled with drunk people all ready to party. Sukura didn't look like my type of place. It was just a massive club that played dance music all night which isn't my favourite type of music. There were lots of other bars I had read about too that I had wanted to check out. Obviously though because of feeling ill we just headed straight back to our hotel after our food but it seemed like we were the only ones to do so as the town just seemed to be coming to life.
The next day we were heading to the Laos capital of Vientiane. We were hoping we would be feeling a lot better by then and be ready to explore the city. It was shame we had been ill whilst staying in Vang Vieng as we never got the chance to explore the nightlife as that seems to be when the place chances from a quiet town to a wild street party! Maybe that just means I'll have to come back someday...
Recommendations -
Gary's Irish Bar - http://www.garysirishbar.com/
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