Vang Vieng

I'm fairly certain that Vang Vieng is unlike any other town in Laos (and maybe Southeast Asia). The town itself is pretty small but a major destination on any backpackers trip as there are tons of activities around here and some pretty good night life too.

The main attraction in Vang Vieng is to go tubing down the Nam Song. Loads of people rent large inner tubes in the town and take them up river where they start the trip back down. The activity was described to me as pub crawling mixed with a water park which is a very accurate description as along the river several bars have set up to allow you to drink beerlao and lao whiskey. Also at all of these bars are swings, slides and ziplines into the river. All in all the activity is very fun but there are many incidents that occur (usually from people who get too drunk so as long as you keep your wits about yourself the day is very enjoyable).

Also around Vang Vieng are several caves which can be reached on bike. I did this for one of my days there and although most of the caves aren't too impressive a few of them are. One cave, called blue lagoon, also contians a nice lagoon in front of it that you can go swimming in to cool off, a great activity in the heat. Although the caves themselves weren't very impressive the ride through the country side was stunning. The dirt road that I followed went through green rice fields with limestone hills rising just beyond the edge of the fields, also the road went through a couple of small villages. The only downside to my day of cycling was that on my way back it started to absolutly pour. So I spent an hour waiting for it to pass in a Lao shop drinking beerlao with the people working there.

The only downside to the town of Vang Vieng is that there doesn't seem to be any real Laos left in it because it's such a party town. The restaurants all seem to have the exact same menu (consisting mostly of western food) and they all play the TV show Friends over and over. So the average person spends the day tubing down the riverm then they sit in these restaurants watching friends for a few hours before going out to the bar. It appears that everybody comes here just to party which can be fun for a couple of days but not many more.

In Vang Vieng there are also plenty of opportunities to go rock climbing, kayaking down the river (I'm told the tubing is better though) and rafting; but I didn't partake in any of these just the caves and a couple of times down the river in a tube before I decided to move on and see more of the real Laos.