Laos Day 3, 4, 5 – Vang Vieng

We decided to stay a little longer in Vang Vieng and actually do something with our time other than moving from town to town. After our long haul journeys to Thailand and then Vientiane it was good knowing we wouldn’t have to get up early or pack again for two more nights.

Off into the unknown!

We booked in on a day tour with the best rated operator in town – advertised as “Trekking, Caves, Tubing and Kayaking”, and involved visiting a couple of the hill tribe villages nearby – a few of the many limestone caves in the area (one of which you get to tube into!) before kayaking back to town before sunset. The reviews said that the trekking part wasn’t really trekking – just walking – and the cave tubing was really fun so we were looking forward to it.

We were picked up at 10:30am and went to their office to pick up some Europeans before setting off to parts unknown. It took about 40 minutes to reach a bridge in the middle of nowhere where the two of us and our guide were dropped off. Apparently the rest of them were on a different tour! We set off, across yet another rickety bridge and into the mountain jungle. Our guide didn’t seem to speak particularly good English – and was fairly quiet at first, but we later found out he was just hungover and had yet to wake up!

The locals kids had the right idea...

We walked for a while through some pretty amazing countryside, across a couple of rivers and through lush green fields and through a small Hmong (tribe people) village. Our guide didn’t really seem all that confident in which direction we were headed most of the time, which made us a little uneasy – but he was starting to get a bit more chatty which helped. He’d only been doing this job for a couple of months and apparently had owned one of the riverside bars which got ripped down – apparently they all went pretty much overnight, so he’d lost his entire livelihood so was now being a tour guide. He told us that the town was really struggling ever since – tourist numbers had been down but were slowly recovering, and the eco-tours were becoming more popular which he said is probably better for the town in the long run.

Cave Buddha

We went to a couple of impressive caves which were really refreshingly cool inside because by this point it must’ve been 35 degrees outside again and there was hardly any shade or cloud cover for most of our treks. I’d already drank my 1.5ltr bottle of water by the time we arrived at the tubing cave – the rest of our group were running late so we had a welcome break waiting for them to arrive.

For the tubing part – we had to get down to our swimmers, don a headtorch and pick out a suitably sized tube to float into the darkness in. The entrance to the cave is pretty low – probably chest high if you were standing there. You maneuver about inside via a system of ropes that lead from the start inside along the various channels deep enough to float on. Instantly the water running out of the deep cave (I’m not sure how deep it was – but I think they literally go back for miles) was freezing in comparison to outside, but it was refreshing if nothing else.

At this point, with my old collarbone injury and Lisa’s fresh broken shoulder we were mildly regretting our choice of activity for the day. We pulled ourselves along as best we could– but we were at the back of the pack and pretty much got left behind straight away. It was like nothing else I’ve ever experienced – at the widest parts the cave is probably 10 metres wide and 5 metres high, completely pitch black aside from the head torches with giant stalagtites hanging down at various intervals which you have to dodge. The ropes are a little slap-dash and criss cross regularly to form the route so you are constantly having to shimmy from side to side of it to avoid the spiky walls – and there are tiny bugs in there which bloody LOVE the head torches, which are sitting just above you eyes so you have that to contend with as well!

After about 15 or 20 minutes of battling the river upstream you reach a really shallow part and have to get out and walk. Neither of us brought flip flops along for fear of losing them which proved a mistake – it was really rocky and you had to crouch right down to get through, plus there is no light again so Lisa couldn’t see anything that well and kept stumbling over. We didn’t enjoy this part – but it wasn’t as bad as the other side. For some reason – there was a 200 metre long stretch with no fucking rope! Lisa had no chance of paddling one handed (other than just in circles) so I got her to grab my foot and I towed us both along at a scarily slow pace up the lazy river from your nightmares into the pitch black, the groups torches were no longer visible as we were so far back.

The look of relief as we emerged!

At the other end we eventually caught up the group as they were admiring something but we missed the explanation and they turned around as soon as we arrived so we never found out what it was. Again, we were left behind but this time it was pitch black in front and behind – good fun! It was somehow even harder going back the other way, despite being with the current – we also had other groups coming the other way to contend with. Lisa’s shoulder was suitably ruined by the time we reached the other side of the walking section so I was playing tugboat as much as we could manage, but it was a nightmare! We did manage to take a few more breaks on the way back, knowing we couldn’t really get any more left behind or lost and that lunch was on the other side so it was a little better – but not really.

Finally we saw the lights of the exit and we were both pretty relieved – who knew riding a tube through a cave would be so taxing!

Elephant rock

We dragged out lunch as long as possible – knowing we had more trekking and a kayak ride to look forward to. We walked a fairly short distance to a couple more caves – one of which had a few golden buddhas inside, along with a limestone formation that looked just like an Elephant (supposedly naturally formed – although we were dubious about this). After another short stroll across yet another rickety bridge we were at our kayak.

This is where, somehow, things took a turn for the even worse. All day our guide kept joking with us about how long it would take to get to the next place – his standard answer was 2 hours. So naturally at about 2pm when I asked him how long it would take to get back to Vang Vieng and he replied “3 and a half hours” I thought he was joking…

We got kitted out with our life jackets and dry bags and set off. We’ve never kayaked on a river before – and it isn’t exactly a raging torrent of water, especially as it was the dry season now so I figured any rapids on they way down would be nothing to worry about, and sure enough the first few were fine – just a slight bump and actually quite fun. Then we hit our first hiccup – I was following his path pretty closely, but strayed about half a metre left through one set of rapids and we got beached on some rocks! After a minute or so of panic, I realised I could just paddle us off with some brute force so we didn’t need rescuing.

Don't look down

Hiccup number two came in the form of some much faster moving water, a set of the biggest rapids yet and a bend in the river all at the same time. If you were white water rafting it’d be the smallest thing you’d notice in a big inflatable dinghy – but in our long, narrow kayak being driven predominantly by me at the rear it was daunting, especially given that half way around this bend was a huge rock sticking a metre out of the water right in the middle of the rapids.

We followed his path – but he was in a smaller kayak and much more nimble than us so where he steered right and went through smoothly, ours lurched forwards over the first set of rapids and directly for the rock. I looked ahead and could see the panic in our guides face as he was screaming and waving “right, right, right!!” – but no amount of paddling was altering our course. Suddenly, I remembered how to brake (although before right now I’ve never had to do it - at sea you just stop paddling and slow down!) and turn at the same time, stuck the oar down to my right and we swung around parallel with the rock – water gushed over the sides and we both braced ourselves expecting to hit it – and slid past and through the rapids, missing the exposed rock and everything under the water by centimeters.

Scenic trekking.

I swore a lot and was rather pleased to have made it, Lisa was still in shock (she’s at the front and obviously right in the firing line of my bad driving) and our guide was absolutely pissing himself and amazed that we’d made it. He kept looking back smiling and laughing, saying he thought we were going over!

We weren’t out of the water yet though. Soon after taking on a load of water there – and probably as a result of our earlier beaching the back of the kayak was now sinking at a rather alarming rate – not aided by the fact that the guide had to use some river reeds as a bung at the back because the original rubber one was missing. We’d taken on loads of water and gotten fairly unstable at the same time – as it sloshed from side to side the kayak toppled from left to right and I could feel we were on the verge of capsizing.

I got Lisa to put the camera back into the dry bag and was preparing for the worst – but we managed to get across to a tiny riverbank and get out at knee depth water before getting a thorough dunking. It was a steep bank with no shore – but as luck would have it a gang of mountain kids were on the river fishing and generally larking about and saw us approach. They helped us drag the kayaks ashore so we could empty the water.

All smiles before it turned into 'The River Wild'.

Gallons and gallons drained out of our poor girl – and you could see why it was leaking, she had been abused a fair amount in her lifetime and there were loads of makeshift patches covering the entire underneath. We were in luck again though, because our guide was the Laos equivalent of Bear Grills – he borrowed a lighter from one of the kids, found a plastic bag and some reeds and went about finding the small hole and melting plastic over the top of it using the reeds as his makeshift blowtorch.

We were stood there fairly amazed at what was happening – wondering if we would survive the afternoon on the river. The kids were most amused by us stood looking soggy in the river – at one point our guide dropped the lighter and it slid down the boat towards the water, just as I had walked over to take a look and I caught it in my fingertips just before it went in which made them roar with laughter and cheers. It was surreal.

Our intrepid guide

It took about 20 minutes to get her ship-shape again, and as a gesture of good will he swapped kayaks with us – we were off again. It had only been about an hour but I felt like I’d aged years – I asked him again how much further, and he said “maybe two hours”. It was then that it dawned on us he wasn’t lying and we’d signed up for a three hour kayak trip down the slowest moving river in Laos.

Well, slowest moving aside from the occasional set of death-rapids that is – soon enough we were defying belief and smashing through them sideways, getting drenched in the process – but we didn’t flip over which was surely a miracle. I asked him if he ever got people that did flip over – thinking we were making a complete mess of it by almost capsizing at every turn – and he said “yeah, all the time – most of the time actually”. Brilliant.

Some Ray Mears action

After another brief stop to drain our kayak – and a few more rapids (fortunately not too many big ones), we came into the outskirts of town – but it was still another hour until we would see dry land again. By this point I was a wreck – back, neck and shoulders all ruined – soaking wet and had nothing left. We started to pass afternoon tubers who kept asking for a ride down the river as it was particularly slow at that point – I felt like beating them with the oar but resisted. We saw the remains of a few riverside bars along the way, along with some of the jumping platforms over some pretty dubiously shallow water – you could see how someone under the influence would end up dead at the bottom of them. There were a few rowdy tubers, but on the whole – everyone just looked bored – maybe they didn’t realise what it had become. We were glad we hadn’t come here just to tube – but at that moment I would have taken one over the kayak and was starting to hope it would sink again so we could just get picked up by a speedboat.

Alas, that didn’t happen and we toiled to the end – broken. I could barely stand up my back hurt so much. What’s more we didn’t get a transfer back so had to walk all sodden to our hotel where we proceed to shower, have dinner and sleep in quick succession.

There was no chance of us doing anything remotely active the net day – we lazily hung around the hotel for most of the morning and early afternoon, ventured out for some food and drinks in the evening but mainly planned our onward travel through Laos and beyond back into Thailand. We had just two options for our next destination – Luang Prabang, a small mini-van (5 hours) or large coach (7 hours). After our previous Thai mini-van experience that almost killed us we opted for the air-con VIP coach.

For some reason the next morning it didn’t leave until about 11am – despite not seeming to come from a previous destination. We had pre-selected seats so couldn’t pull our usual bus trick – but as it turned out it was a free-for-all on board and we ended stuck at the front of the top deck. It seemed ok to begin with, but there was no comfortable way to sit at all – and the mountain roads were the windiest yet.

Mesmerised by the beard

The rest stops all sold horrible and expensive food – we couldn’t even watch a movie it was so bad on board, and we were running late so didn’t arrive in Luang Prabang until 8pm – 9 hours later. On arrival – we didn’t have the exact address of the hotel, and our tuk tuk driver spoke no English so we drove aimlessly around the town for 30 minutes before he dropped us somewhere completely wrong and we had to walk another 20 minutes before we found the place. Annoyingly – we’d been right near it whilst he had asked for directions, but we had no idea! It was a tough travelling day – and we couldn’t face going out for food, or drinks and we decided to regroup and sleep on it before deciding how long to stay.