Vang Vieng, Laos – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Center of the town of Vang Vieng, Laos

After our Thai-Laos visa run, we stayed in the capital city of Vientiane for two days to re-energize and plan our next move within Laos.  We knew we wanted to visit Luang Prabang in the North, but it was a matter of deciding whether to do it all in one shot…or to break it up by visiting the “pit stop” of Laos…Vang Vieng.

Known in traveling circles as a backpackers playground, we sifted through forums and blogs to encounter stories of adolescent drunken revelry, along with illicit drugs, and bad food.

But for every bad story about Vang Vieng, we heard equally good stories about the place as well.  So ultimately, we decided to see for ourselves what all the fuss was about.

The town of Vang Vieng lies just over 200Km north of Vientiane.  It takes roughly 3-4 hours to reach it by bus…and while that may sound relatively short, you’re actually ready to get off the bus after two hours.

Laos roads are poorly maintained, and the road fatigue gets to you quickly.  We’re talking potholes combined with alternating paved and dirt sections the entire way.

Travelers Note:  The word on the street is that many of Laos’ roads are impassable during the monsoon season.  If your travel schedule has you in Laos during that time(July-November), you might reconsider overland travel.  Many travel guides recommend river travel as an alternative, so that’s saying something about the roads conditions(or lack thereof) during these periods.

The Good

The surrounding area of Vang Vieng is what truly puts the town on the map.  The limestone karsts and the clear water of the Nam Song river combined with the agricultural landscape and undeveloped country roads provide a stunning backdrop that we totally fell in love with.

This was our backyard view from our bungalow.

We planned to stay here for just two days, and ended up staying for five.  It was not a difficult decision.  Traveling can be a challenging job, and any chance we get we squeeze in some down time to recharge ourselves.

Our home for five days. Did not need air conditioning, as Vang Vieng is cool in December.

If you enjoy outdoor pursuits, Vang Vieng really can’t be beat.  Options abound from kayaking, mountain-biking, hiking, rock-climbing, and there’s even hot air ballooning!

A hot air balloon over Vang Vieng

Self-guided touring really is the best way to experience Vang Vieng.  There are plenty of maps available(here’s an excellent one), and you can rent a bicycle or even a motorbike to cover ground faster if necessary.

This pasture was just a five-minute walk from our bungalow

If you’re on a tight schedule, there are plenty of tour operators in the main town who can organize one or more activities throughout your day, including transport.

Longtail boats for hire by the hour

One of many spectacular sunsets we saw during our time in Vang Vieng

One of the best experiences we had was trekking up Pha Ngeun.  It’s an hour walking from town to reach the trail entrance(HN-170 on the map), and then another hour to hike to the top.

Marvin finds a great seat atop Pha Ngeun in Vang Vieng, Los

From the top, you can see panoramic views of the valley, including some of the Hmong villages that lie along the road that circles some of the taller limestone karsts in the area.

The Bad

The main town of Vang Vieng doesn’t really have much to offer in the way of culture.  What you will find here is a motley crew of combination restaurant/bar/guesthouse establishments that cater to a younger tourist crowd.

The menus will feature some Thai and Laos cuisines for those inclined to have a taste of the local flavor.  But the main offering will be pizza, smoothies, burgers, and sandwiches.  For what you will pay, the quality leaves something to be desired.  And that goes even for the local cuisine!

And it’s true what the guidebooks say…most of the eateries have a widescreen TV playing reruns of Friends and The Family Guy all day long.  We’ve seen some patrons sit there all day long from breakfast until dinner just veg’ing out on TV!

The Ugly

If you decide to have your evening meal in the town center after 7:30PM you will tend to see Vang Vieng at its worst.

This is about the time when all the younger folks are just getting back from tubing on the Nam Song river.  Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls…but load them up with a few buckets of whiskey and beer, and maybe a shroom or two…well, you know what happens next.

Your dinner conversation will likely be drowned out by half-naked youngsters running up and down the street screaming for no reason other than they’ve temporarily lost their minds.

There was not a single night that Jo and I didn’t see a young woman being “fireman” carried down the street to her room because she could no longer stand up straight.

We even witnessed a couple of girls totally shirk on paying for their meal at a restaurant.  They laughed hysterically while kowtowing to the owner pleading that they didn’t have any cash(which they didn’t, as they had clearly spent it all on booze while floating down the river.

Vang Vieng is known for its tubing.  What you might not know is that every year at least a few deaths occur in Vang Vieng.  The river is very shallow, and Darwin’s law holds true as many an overconfident  tuber dives into the river to their death.

No one died during our visit to Vang Vieng, but we really felt bad on seeing an injury almost every day we were there.  Needless to say, we passed on the tubing completely, opting instead for more tranquil pursuits.

More images of the tubing can be found on Johnny’s site here.  A call to action for visitors to be more responsible during their visit to Vang Vieng was issued by Nomadic Matt as well.

We’ve already left Laos.  We planned to stay only a short time as Mom was visiting for the first time in Bangkok and we volunteered to be her tour guide for a few days.

We re-entered Thailand over land, which means we only got a 15-day entry visa.  That visa expires this Monday.  In our next post, we’ll reveal the next country we’ll be visiting.  Stay tuned.

More photos of our visit to Vang Vieng HERE.

photo credit:  photo