KayakVangvieng.com

A small and beautiful town surrounded by mountains and rivers, Vangvieng is a place of delight and wonder for visitors from around the world.

The city is about 150 km north of Vientiane, situated between the capital city and the World Heritage town of Luang Prabang. The main attractions are the clean and clear water of the Nam Xong river, karst outcroppings, caves and mountain scenery. The town has more than 30 natural caves, and most places of interest are accessible to visitors all year round.

Kayaking in Vangvieng, Laos

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This entry recalls the author’s last week in Laos. They passed through Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng and Vientiane. Especially in Vang Vieng, they took part in an kayak tour.

Tuesday 25 November 2008

Am writing from Hanoi, but will try and flash out our last week in Laos.

At my last time of writing I finished at our arrival in Luang Prabang. Luang Prabang used to be the capital of Laos, until the royal family ‘disappeared’. Its known as being beautiful and is a UNESCO site. I’m not sure we really got the beauty of the city, but we certainly had a nice time traveling around the places nearby. We hired bikes to explore one day, and on our second day there we went to a stunningly waterfall at Kuang Si national park. It was really beautiful with some great swimming holes. It felt so refreshing to take a swim. It wasn’t until we had a swim that we realised how much we’d been craving one. Kuang Si also has a really good sanctuary for Asiatic Bears, so interesting place all round.

After our various dodgy modes of transport in the last few weeks we thought we would ourselves to a VIP bus trip to Vang Vieng (7hours from Luang Prabang). Pathetically, I was actually quite looking forward to it, having heard tales of buses of luxury plying the routes in Thailand, with super reclining seats, movies and hostess service all on board. hmmm…. guess this isn’t the case in Laos. We got onto a rattling old bus and once again felt that similar feeling of my knees around my ears… (ok maybe not that bad!).
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The kayaking, trekking, caving and tubing – all is in this tour. Read the entry to know the author’s feeling

October 13th 2008

So we survived the road show downs and enter a sparsely populated tourist town that is Vang Vieng. It’s a one road town really, with a few side roads. Even by Luang Prabang standards it is pretty empty. I guess the only reason people come here is to open a tourist type shop, guest house or you are a tourist yourself.

Once we decamp to our hotel, paying the extortionate rate of $6 a night we wander the main road. The first thing you notice is that most of the bigger cafes and restaurants have a kind of raised lounge seating, and the second thing is they all have tv’s playing Friends or Family Guy. Weird!

Now the main draw for this place is the river and the landscape around the river. It’s another really beautiful place away from the town. The main activity on the river is either tubing (anyone remember that 80′s arcade game Toobin’) or kayaking.

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This entry describes the trip in Vang Vieng. Beside kayaking, it also includes biking, riding elephants. Read out this entry with video clip below.

July 19th, 2008

So Vang Vieng was just about everything we like in a town, although after a couple days the ever-playing re-runs of Friends start to get on your nerves.

For this reason, we booked a day of mountain bike riding (35 km trek) that includes stopping at one of the more remote caves, then some elephant riding through a local village (see video below), then finishing off with the stretch back to Vang Vieng. Overall, it was some good exercise, which we both badly needed, and the elephant riding was quite the experience. Everyone knows elephants are big and strong, but you really don’t know how strong they are until you see your guide standing on your elephant’s head and walking down it’s back…

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The author’s first kayaking tour along the Nam Song River in Vang Vieng is what the entry’s about.

July 6, 2008

Nope, Never!!!

Well at 8am this morning I was up and packing my bags ready to go kayaking. Trying to decide what I should pack in my daypack. Should I take a first aid kit, is it dangerous, how many changes of clothes, camera, phone, valuables, so many choices!!! Anyway I was ready in time for 9 when the tuk tuk came and picked us up from our hotel. I was almost glad to be getting away from Vang Vieng after being there for 6 days. I was all tubed out and with no power in the town I needed to get away for hot showers and ATM’s. Plural because Vang Vieng only had one and that didn’t always have money in it or power!

Once on the tuk tuk we drove across the airstrip to the other side of town to the truck which we would be traveling on for an hour to reach the Nam Song River which was our starting point. Once here we were given a life jacket and helmet ( I think I was underestimating how dangerous this might turn out to be!) and some basic instructions as to how to Kayak. Basic as in our guide didn’t speak a lot of English and was giving us this lesson on dry land. Showing us how to move the paddles. He also went on to say stay away from the rocks and the whirlpools!! Because if you get stuck in a whirlpool you can’t get out!!! They also stressed to us that a paddle costs 200 Baht! So don’t lose it! With that, we was in.

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June, 6th, 2008

We decided to kayak from Vang Vieng to Vientiane. DD and Acey would be proud of us. We thought we would spend the whole day kayaking, we were told there would be rapids. We kayaked for two hours, the rapids were ripples, and we spent the same amount of time driving as if we had not of kayaked at all. What I find amusing is the safety training we had for the rapids.

The tour guide told us the dangers of the rapids;
“There are whirl pools that drag you under, this is how you hold your paddle…blah, blah, blah, blah”

Then just before the rapids he pulled us to the side of the river to go over the safety procedures again! We are cognitive beings, I am sure the group had not forgotten the first load of bullshit instructions. Anyway the tension built and we were sent down the river. The so-called rapids turned out to be no bigger than the wash of a small boat. And I was hoping for some solo-man action. Sorry Acey.  I would not say that we were ripped off but I would say that we were the victims of false advertising. No biggie, lunch was good and the scenery was quite pretty.

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An interesting story about kayaking in Vang Vieng with a lovely trouble like “Titanic”

Friday, 1st ,February 2008

Apart from watching Friends in the restaurants, relaxing in the hammock and partying, more dynamic activities in Vang Vieng include caving, biking, tubing and kayaking!

It is amazing to see dozens and dozens of people just floating down the river on the inflated inner truck tires. They would be dropped of several kilometers up the river in the morning and would float down for hours till they reach Vang Vieng again. The floating can last even up to 5 hours and on the way down the river, you can find so called bars on the bamboo sticks with extremely loud music (hip-hop, techno…), gallons of Lao Beer (which is, btw extremely good) and high bamboo platforms from which youngsters in search for more adrenalin can jump into the river (which is not really safe during the dry season…).

Anyways, Renata (the girl I met in North Thailand I travel with since then) and I decided to enjoy the river by kayaking which was extremely nice! The only thing was that we ended up with the kayak with the small hole in the bottom so I ended up, between rowing, taking out the water (as I was on the back) with small plastic bottle (doing actually what I saw almost all Laotian people are doing when being in the boat). Even this was not enough, so when the water would be so high that the edge of the kayak was only 2-3 cm above the water and I was sitting in the water up to waist, we would need to stop on the shore, go out and empty the kayak (by turning it upside down) and then coming back to rowing.

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3 Nov 06

“Today we were on a combined trek and kayak day of activity. We hopped on to the van which took us and Lisa (USA), the 3 Crazy Belgains (Belgium) and John & Caroline (USA) off into the countryside surrounding VV”

Our first stop was to explore some of the caves which surround VV. We had forgotten to bring our head-torches, so we were wired up with some 1950s style car battery type affairs which hung round our necks like cow bells, whilst a few watts of power was beamed out (admittedly you could see quite a way, although Dave’s light insisted on fluttering on and off which did give a nice strobe effect). A-M and John discussed the detailed geology of the caves, whilst the rest of us banged on the stalagmites (sp) as they made a funny bongo sound.

The next cave was way cool. It was flooded and so we were each given a tube (see previous day notes) and then there were ropes in the cave which you could use to pull yourslef in. Now this is how you explore caves – floating around in the dark, using your head-torch to illuminate the way. A definite highlight of the trip!

An early lunch was then followed by the ‘trek’ element of the trip, which consisted of about a 2 mile walk alongside a stream. Not perhaps the kind of trek we might have envisaged. Then it was off to kayak – essentially we were doing the same stretch of the river that we had tubed the previous day, but setting off earlier (ie more time) and with more sun (ie warmer). The result was possibly better than tubing – your rear does not get wet, and you can fully recline in your kayak to take in the sunshine more completely (fully reclining on a tractor tube usually results in you fully taking in the river). Today we took the opportunity to stop off at one of the jump spots. Beer Lao were ordered in (with thanks to J&C, given that we had yet again come unprepared re: cash) and the zipwire / flying fox which looped you over the river was tested. This was scary or excillerating or both, depending on your point of view, as you zoom out over the river and then decide from what height to ‘drop’ in. A-M picked up many plaudits for style and sophistication, as she decided to zoom back and forth, before elegantly letting go. Dave picked up plaudits from A-M for the second attempt ‘being better than your first’. Say no more.

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