Vang Vieng
Our trip from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng was relatively uneventful. The scenery,however, was spectacular as we drove through the mountains. Unfortunately, they are in to slash and burn agriculture here, and they are burning a lot of the hillsides, presumably to plant rice or rubber trees. The air was also noticeably heavier than usual and I had the feeling all day that it was going to rain.
We arrived in Vang Vieng a little after sunset, but we had a recommendation for a nice guesthouse on the opposite side of the river. When we crossed the river, we had the unfortunate surprise of having to pay for the footbridge…a bit of a nuisance if we would have to pay every time we came into town. We went through anyway, and when we arrived at the guesthouse it was full…. Luckily, there was a new guesthouse, 5 lovely bungalows facing the river, that had a free room. We unloaded our stuff, and went to the restaurant for a bite to eat. Just as we finished our meal, the wind started blowing hard, and the umbrella that had been protecting our table from the impending rain blew off right over the railing into the river. We quickly paid and ran to our bungalow, just as the rain started coming down. Within a few minutes, it was thundering and lightning like I have never seen before and water was coming in through the roof. We could hear the wind blowing the trees outside and we were both nervous that one would come crashing down into our little home. We had to put the covers back on our backpacks and put everything inside to protect it from the rain. At one point we heard a bolt of lightning that sounded like it had hit nearby. After about an hour, the storm began to die down and we climbed into bed. I woke up on and off all night to rain and howling wind. The next morning we discovered that two trees had fallen during the night; one was hit by lightning and broke in two, falling into the water reservoir, the second fell onto the roof of another bungalow pushing the bungalow about 30 degrees off its stilts and awakening the two unsuspecting tourists inside. Luckily no one was injured and the damage is reparable.
It continued to rain on and off the next morning, so we fixed breakfast on our balcony, and spent the time doing some trip planning.(Being world traveler extraordinaires is a full time job, there’s always something to plan.) In the daylight, we could finally appreciate our location, the river on one side lined with fancy resorts, a rice field and karstic mountains on the other. By the late morning, the rain let up and we ventured into town, wading through the river rather than paying the footbridge. The town was a big mud pit…and everyone seemed to be hanging out inside.
The area is famous for its caves. We visited three of them, each quite different. The first, and most famous,Tham Jang, was used as a bunker when the southern Chinese invaded. We had to climb up a steep set of stairs to reach the entrance. Inside there were several large caverns filled with beautiful stalagtites and stalagmites. There was also a small opening that looked out onto the river below and a small makeshift Buddhist temple. From the bottom, you could swim in the small river that fed the cave. The second cave, Tham Phu Kham, we walked a good hour and a half to reach. To reach the cave, we climbed up a steep, rocky path. At the entrance, there was a big reclining Buddha. After climbing over and under more boulders inside of the cave, we reached a huge room, pitch black, about 150ft across. It wasn’t very pretty, but it was amazing being in such a large space in complete darkness. Near the cave, at the bottom of the path was a beautiful crystal clear swimming hole. The third cave was the most adventurous. Unfortunately we don’t remember the name but it was about 2km from town on the same road to Tham Phu Kham. A guide took us through the vast caves, which were muddy, but beautiful. We found out that there are great acoustics in the caves and certain stalagtites make a beautiful sound when you tap on them. When we came out, we were sweaty and dirty so we took a small dip in the the swimming hole near the entrance.
We were a bit tired of public transport, so we decided to kayak from Vang Vieng to Vientienne, the capital. Actually we kayaked about 25 km of the trip along the beautiful Nam Ngum. The river was low in some parts because we are at the end of the rainy season, but we crossed one class 3 rapid, some easy class 1s and had a nice steady current pushing us the whole way. Fabien, the daredevil, also tried out cliff jumping again, and jumped from about 15m,into the river.
The last hour we had to take a sanganthew (shared truck) to reach Vientienne. We were expecting to have a private one for the tour group, but we were wrong. We packed a whole army of people into the back, including a man who seemed to be suffering from a mysterious, serious illness who we had to deliver to the hospital. The day was topped off when we crossed a huge rainstorm, forcing us to cram all of our backpacks inside and use them (along with someones raincoat) to shield us from the pounding rain.
We arrived in Vientianne soaking wet, but in good spirits and made plans to meet up for dinner with a British couple we’d met kayaking. We spent the evening exchanging stories and drinking beer and were promptly kicked out of the resto at 10pm because it was obviously past the Lao’s bedtime.
Tags: BIG TRIP 2005-2006, In English 2005-2006
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