Vang Vieng – Mountain, River, Waterfall and Lagoons

Vang Vieng is a small town along the Nam Song river. The small town is surrounded by limestone mountains, caves and lagoons. The place is famous among the backpackers for tubing along the Nam Song river. Tubing along the river led to lot of accidents in the past because of which the tourism officials have increased the safety around the area. I had booked for my hot air balloon tour but the trip was cancelled because of bad weather.

Boat trip along the Nam Song river – Since the Hot air balloon was cancelled I had nothing to do during the evening time. I rented a boat along the Nam Song river and went upstream till the starting point of tubing. Tubing is an adventure activity in which people sit on a tube and flow through the river downstream. Most of the people get drunk heavily while performing the activity this led to serious accidents in the past. Tubing is definitely dangerous during rainy season. After the scenic boat ride along the river I visited Tham Nam water cave.

Tham nam water cave – The cave is situated by around 30-minute drive from the Vang Vieng town. The cave is famous for tubing inside cave. It was completely dark inside the cave and you need to take light in order to perform this activity. I reached the cave around evening time so decided not to proceed for tubing. The water inside the cave was blue in color and there was a small Buddha temple near the water cave.

Quad bike day trip to Yui waterfall and blue lagoon – I booked a full day trip to Yui waterfall and blue lagoon on the 2^nd day of my trip to Vang Vieng. I booked my tour from www.laosimpression.com. You can also rent a buggy car instead of quad bike.

Our two stops were situated completely opposite to each other. Our 1^st stop was Yui waterfall. I was using ATV for the 1^st time and the roads were really bad. The condition of the ATV was not good. We had to stop multiple times along the road in order to keep the transmission chain inside the grooves. My guide was very nice and he was very helpful. The waterfall was very ordinary but the ATV drive was very good. The roads were made for the ATVs and you experience the vast remoteness of Laos if you visit these places. You can also see limestone mountains and rice fields along the way. After spending an hour at the waterfall we had to go back all the way to Vang Vieng to pick up our lunch. The total travel time was 2 hours.

We picked up our lunch and started our journey towards blue lagoon. This route was more crowded compared to the waterfall and we saw lots of buggy car along the way. After one hour we reached the blue lagoon. The blue lagoon is a small place but the place is very beautiful. The water is very deep and it is a great place to do cliff jumping but beware of rocks inside the blue lagoon. You can also do Zip-line near the blue lagoon. We used wood and coal to make a natural barbecue pit. It was a great barbecue lunch and the weather was very good.

Around 4 pm we visited another lagoon which was far bigger compared to the blue lagoon but not at all crowded. There were hardly 5 people at the lagoon and the water colour was similar to that of the blue lagoon. After spending an hour at the lagoon we returned back to Vang Vieng. My guide was fantastic he also invited me to his home in order to try small river fish from the pond. After a long drive around the country side of Laos we finally reached Vang Vieng at around 6 pm. My next stop was Luang Prabang which is around 4 hours bus ride from Vang Vieng. I took the night bus at 10 pm and reached Luang Prabang by 4 am.