Woke up to our last morning in Vientiane and found we were
leaving just as the city was re-opening from its Pi Mai shut down. Luckily this
included the local swimming pool just round the corner so we headed in for a
quick early morning dip, very refreshing!
Back to one of our favourite breakfast haunts Croissant D’or
(very old colonial French) and we both opted for the Tokyo breakfast (not very
old French colonial) it’s a great deal Sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs and
scotch pancakes and a coffee. Just as we were tucking in Brad from Moonlight
Champa came in and joined us. He ordered the same breakfast only to be told
they had run out! Just as our piping hot 'Tokyo' breakfasts were delivered to the
table – sorry Brad!
Obviously I had to have a croissant as well – they are very
good here too. It is surprisingly hard to find a real croissant in Asia (oh the
hardship) but typically you will find croissant shaped bread, or what we have
come to refer to as fake baked goods, this category includes cakes that look
amazing but taste of nothing at all or something savoury, no such trouble in
Croissant D’or.
Having filled up, we headed back to Moonlight Champa to check
out and wait with Brad and Isabella for our onward bus to Vang Vieng. Really we
were intending to head directly to Luang Prabang but whilst this town is only a
couple of hundred K away, it takes another 12 hours on the bus so we decided to
stop at the conveniently located Vang Vieng about half way. Famous for being a
young traveller hang out with wild parties, occassional drunken tubing
fatalities and basically a place that has been taken over by us falang giving
us all a bad name. So we were not planning to stay for long.
The tuk-tuk turned up on time (Laos Time) so only about 30
mins late and ferried us to the bus terminal and onto our surprisingly spacious
and cool minibus (thank god!) for the onward trek. The bus filled up and off we
went, as we hit the main road to Vang Vieng it became clear why such a short
journey would take so long. The road is very steep and mountainous and very,
very twisty and it is like this all the way from Vientiane to Luang Prabang. It
takes as long to make this short hop as it did for us to get from the very
south of Laos to the North!
The bus did stop for 20 mins or so halfway through and at the top of a mountain for us to get out and stretch our legs. There were some good views too before being piled back into the minivan.
We arrived in Vang Vieng pretty much on schedule and walked
the short distance into town. We had a few guesthouses lined up to look at but
had not booked ahead, we headed to the first on the list ‘Laos Haven Hotel and
Spa’ and ended up stopping here. Not a bad price and the rooms were large, air
conditioned and had clean bathrooms (and included breakfast – a rarity here).
Sold!
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| This made me chuckle so just threw it in! I am unsure what I have done wrong but its pretty clear I am in trouble :) |
We unloaded our gear and asked for a recommendation for food
as the evening was drawing in, so off we went to AMD restaurant a few minutes
down the road. We sat down at quiet a local looking restaurant and ordered. The
food took a long time to arrive but when it did, it was well worth the wait
good food, good portions, good price and a new dessert experience for Ana
(Banana Fritters and syrup).
A quick wander round Vang Vieng showed that it is indeed
still set up for young western tourists. The bars, guesthouses and tour
companies that make up 90% of the buildings in this small town nestled by the
river were all very similar, catering to western tastes but I am happy to
report (because I am rapidly approaching middle age) that despite being a town
geared entirely towards young tourists, when we were there, there was very
little of the sort of antics that made this place famous in recent years. There are still of course the odd wat or two. I couldn't blog a whole post without including one...
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| Wat a sunset (sorry) |
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| Pretty Buddhist temple |
It
seems like there has been a real crackdown on the sort of drug and drink fueled
antics that gave this place it's reputation. Whilst there are still plenty of
places to drink the day away without seeing any of the surrounding areas, the
opening hours are more strictly enforced and there is just one tubing outfit in
town. The whole town had a much more relaxed and enjoyable vibe than the mini
Ibiza I was dreading!
Headed back to the hotel for a well earned rest. Up the next morning to grab breakfast and met Michael who
runs the hotel with his wife. Michael is in charge of the breakfast operation
and it runs very well. He is possibly the smiliest man I have ever met, very
welcoming and entertaining and seems to find life generally funny. Mini baguette and eggs with frankfurter and ham with a side serving of local rice porridge, dried onion and fresh chives for me and we were fueled up for the days exploration.
The landscape over the river from the main town of Vang
Vieng is similar to Ha Long bay with large limestone karst outcrops, the only
thing missing is the sea. These rocky pinnacles are home to some interesting
caves and pools so we headed out to explore them on foot.
Tham Chang was first on the list (and closest/easiest to get to). This cave was used as locals as a refuge during the civil war and subsequently locals have gone back to bath in the freezing cold waters which they believe is good for them. We headed across the wooden bridge and trekked along a
wooded trail for quite a while before ending up in a large expanse of flat open
farmland which yielded no caves - oops. Undeterred we carried on along the paths between these large rice farms
until we stumbled across a local who asked where we were headed. Apparently we
were on the wrong track (the tourist map we were given was worse than useless!)
the guy pointed us back the way we had come and pointed to a large rocky cliff
that looked a likely candidate for caves, so we headed back towards it.
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| Crossing the bridge away from Vang Vieng ready for a good morning explore, not sweating yet! |
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| I am now! Where is this bloody cave? |
Getting there was easier said than done and what started out
looking like a 20 min walk turned into an hour or so hour trekking in the
increasing heat of the morning. We crossed a second river and ended up in
anther cul-de-sac of farm land which was cut off by yet another smaller river, more like a long puddle really! Just as we were going to turn back the same farmer popped up just across the
water and beckoned us to cross over a small improvised bamboo pole bridge
affair.
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| Apparently it's across here! |
We did so and he pointed us to some caves which were labelled on the
bare rock with numbers so we thanked him and carried on exploring. This led us
to a group of small caves that we had not seen on any maps and we had to
scramble to get up to and into. Quite claustrophobic and very dark even in the
smaller caves but we persevered and had come prepared with head torches so there
was no stopping us. It was quite a cool experience and we both enjoyed it but
it was a hot and sweaty adventure through some dense forest.
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| Is it under here?.... Nope! |
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| Maybe up here? |
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| It's a cave! Not the right one but it'll do! |
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| At last, I get to justify bringing my headtorch - there are some bats and spiders in here...it also feels like over 40C! |
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| That was hard work! Another sweaty selfie! |
After we had finished with this little detour we headed on
further for about 5 minutes and stumbled across where we clearly had been
intending to go all along. A ticket hut and small parking area with shops etc
marked the start of a climb up to the Tham Chang cave. After a brief rest we duly
paid our small fee and started the hike up a few hundred steps carved out of
the rock and arrived at the entrance to the cave. This place is huge and well
lit with multi-coloured lights and a well defined path to explore. A little
like the caves we saw in Halong Bay in Vietnam only without the hassle of a
really annoying guide! It was quite a cool and large cave, amazing rock formations and at one point hole onto the cliff side had been turned into a balcony overlooking the valley affording great views.
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| Worth the climb for the view back over the valley. |
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| Huge cavern. touristy but quite quiet and still very entertaining for an explore. |
Although quite
touristy, we enjoyed it and after a good explore we headed back down and Ana
persuaded me to go for a dip in the cool river at the bottom. I wasn't on my
own and the water was crystal clear so I hopped in with the local tourists and
swam into the little cavern and generally behaved a bit like a kid. A good way
to cool off after the mornings exertions!
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| Falang (Laos for foreigner) Coming through! Crikey, its chilly! |
We walked back to the hotel and had a cool down in the bliss
of AC. After recharging we headed out to grab a coffee by the riverside at the
elephant crossing hotel recommended by Isabella. Unfortunately the coffee was
atrocious but the views were great just as Isabella had said so we settled in
to watch sunset and worked on some blogging admin to keep you lucky folks up to
date with our exploits J
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| A relaxing break by the river back in town |
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| Just in time for sunset |
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| and some blogging admin - see, I told you this was hard work |
Dinner at AMD again, we honestly don’t always go back to the same
place but AMD did great local food and among the hundreds of restaurants
pedaling burgers and poor imitation western cuisine, it was a breath of fresh
air. More banana fritters (local Laos food of course) were consumed!
Next day we planned to head Tham Phou Kham cave and the blue lagoon. No
explanations necessary, it does what it says on the tin. As this was a little
further out we decided to hire bikes and cycle up to it.
Michael at Laos Haven
strongly urged us not to go for the cheap and cheerful fixed gear bikes we were
planning to get (same as we had used everywhere else up to this point) and boy,
am I glad we took his advice! We both rented sturdy Trek mountain bikes and
after finding 2 that met our apparently exceedingly high standards of gears and
brakes working with no weird clanking noises, we set of for the 7 or 8 K cycle
to the blue lagoon as soon as we could in the morning. It was a pretty
enjoyable if a little challenging ride along a red dust track with some small steep sections.
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| At last, proper bikes - we would have had difficulties on the dodgy old ones we were going to get! |
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| Great landscape and quite a fun ride, whilst it stayed flat! |
We made it to the blue lagoon, essentially a wide slow
flowing river which was very blue and very clear flowing past the foot of the cliff that houses the cave.We also made it before the majority of the tourist crowd. This site feels much
more set up as a tourist attraction though with overpriced food stalls and people trying to sell you things.
First order of business we headed up another huge flight of
stairs to the cave, we were met with a detailed notice at the bottom and had
duly packed our head torches so figured we would be OK.
At the start of the cave there is a huge cavern in which a large
shrine has been built with a large Buddha statue. This area is very well lit
with natural daylight and there is little to show you how far the cave
goes. Getting across this cavern
requires some quite exciting scrambling and physical exertion to get to the
back, at which point you are greeted by an arrow that points you into pitch
blackness.
Head torches out, we carried on and delved a little deeper.
We passed a really deep hole with warning signs and a short wall around it, Ana
dropped something (I never did ask what it was) down it to see if we could hear a splash or
anything….nothing, so could be quite deep!
Next up we passed a sign a little like a wet floor sign you
would find in the supermarket. This one just said warning and after a little
looking around I assume it referred to the 2 or 3 small holes through the floor
that seemed to indicate that we were walking on a very thin layer of rock which
was suspended over a large cavern. That was a little un-nerving. That was also
about where the health and safety considerations stopped, as we got further
into the cave the structures became really awesome but pretty soon no natural
light was available at all – and I do mean none. Photos with a flash were
pretty pointless as the air was so hot and humid that all you can see are the suspended
condensation in the air and the sheen of moisture on the rocks (and people).
Ana decided to stop at one point, discretion being the
better part of valour and without really thinking I chose to plough on into the
dark, enjoying the feeling of being a pioneer explorer (or at least one of the
first of the day!) It didn’t take long for me to get a little disorientated and
without a map or compass or any real light, I did have a little moment where I realized I was on
my own in a dark cave with an insufficient headtorch and had no idea which way I
had come…exciting!
I used the sounds from a distant tourist party to try and figure the
best way out and struck out in what I hoped was the right direction. After a
couple of minutes I saw what I assumed was Ana’s head torch across a large
cavern and made a beeline to it. This involved descending a slick wet rocky
surface in the near pitch black and at one point I realized I didn’t know if I
was descending into one of those holes or to a flat rock floor. That made me
pause for a sec!
Anyway long story short, I made it back a little hotter and
sweatier than I left and had enough of cave exploring for the morning!
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| Before you head up the stairs, there's a little stall renting out head lamps, they really want you to take one... |
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Awesome view over the valley from the top of the stairs up to the cave.
|
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| Large cavern at the cave opening complete with a Buddah and a monk praying when we arrived! |
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| Ana posing with some interesting rock formations! |
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| and she's wasting no time clambering down into the real cave entrance at the back. Light on! |
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This is the Laos idea of a caution sign in a dark cave. Ana is looking nervous as we are essentially stood on a thin layer of rock over a deep cavern!
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Arty shot form the darkness back into the cavern. won't be seeing daylight for a while...
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| It's hot and sticky in here and a bit precarious! |
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| Errr...which way did I come? Ana? Anyone? Bugger.... |
We both retreated out to the daylight where we relaxed for
the hottest part of the day playing by (and in) the blue lagoon. There were swings set
up and a large tree conveniently placed with ladders to climb and jump off into
the river, some local kids were swarming all over the tree like monkeys and I
figured I could do the same. Turns out it takes a little practice and a
willingness to ignore the fact you’re quite high up but I made it to the top
and took a leap into the water, painful as I am no Tom Daley but good fun all
the same! Ana had a go on the rope swing and won most improved swing of the day
(the below photo shows the first attempt – more of a fall than a swing ;) ).
Had an early evening to recover from the days exertions and
up early the next day for Michael's good breakfast fayre and onto the bus for
the 6 hour trip to LP.
Vang Vieng – apparently not what it used to be but I think its better
now!
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