Caving in Vang Vieng

The view from my verandah

Vang Vieng is only about 3 hours from Vientiane, so i left in the afternoon and arrived there at dusk.  I took a little ferry across the Nam Song river as the sun was setting to get to a guest house there, as the guest houses on the main side of the river are usually filled with noisy backpackers, who are mainly there for the cheap beer.  I managed to secure a beautiful bungalow on a stream that feeds into the Nam Song, overlooking the limestone cliffs, while itself it is nestled in a beautiful lush garden.

I met Ben from France who was going to be there the next day, so we decided to go to the caves together.  We hired a scooter and after a one minute instruction of how to ride one, with Ben in the driving seat, we were off.  I had forgotten my map, so we were just going on the information we had been given by some other travellers the day before, and we did manage to find the Blue Lagoon cave.  I was exptecting there to be a blue lagoon inside the cave, but that is the name given to the cave because of the river outside of it – it was a greeny brown when we were there...  Thankfully Ben had a torch, as i had forgotten mine, so we managed to explore the cave safely, getting ourselves completely lost at one point.  What i found really interesting is that you just pay your entrance fee and then you are given free reign of the cave (you could hire a guide, but that would cost more money), to explore at leisure.  As it is rainy season here, the inside of the cave was very slippery in parts and with many interesting shaped pools of water in others.  My new flip flops were a killer, so i decided it was safer to take them off and do it barefoot.  After getting lost and then finding ourselves again, we headed towards the white light...

We then spent a refreshing half hour in the pool on the ropes hanging from the tree into the water. It was very refreshing, as it was quite hot.  We then hopped back onto the bike and kept riding... We expected to arrive at more signs for caves, but we didn’t, so we kept riding.  We crossed a few rickety bridges along the way, and in the end managed to find ourselves back where we started.  It was good to see the countryside, as i would never have gone that far on foot or bicycle... We were back at the guest house by 3pm and called it a day.  Ben tried to teach me to ride the scooter, but i think more practice is required before i take one of them scooters out myself!

The next day i ended up reading most of the morning – Marion had lent me a book which i just couldn’t put down, so i decided to finish it before i went out.  I then went walking to the organic farm which is about 4km out of town – expecting a lovely peaceful atmosphere...  Unfortunately it is right on the river next to the drop off point for tubers – so there are a couple of bars that have their music blaring in order to attract more customers...

That is where i met Ocean.  She is from Australia, and was also not into the tubing and getting drunk scene, so we headed back to town, walking along the river for a while taking in the scenery amidst the bars and loud music.

The next day Ocean and I hired bicycles to go explore some caves that were further out of town – 13km to be exact.  We started nice and early and had a pleasant cycle there – despite the heat!  At the ferry point, there was a man being very creative and charging people for parking – we decided to park our bikes elsewhere where we didn’t need to pay.  Once on the other side of the river a guide managed to attach himself to us and took us up the path to the caves.  He then proceeded to take us through the cave called Tham Hoi, which is a seriously long cave with big pools of water. At one point he told us we needed to leave our bags as the water was deep after that point – i hesitated for a long while before  leaving it there... It was only later that night that i realised that some of my money had been stolen.  Thankfully i don’t carry a lot around with me, but it is still frustrating to have trusted someone and then had that trust betrayed. Despite that, the cave itself was really cool – and yes very slippery as well, but so much fun!!!  He then led us to the next cave and said that he had to get back and now it was time to pay him.  He was asking some ridiculous price, so we gave him what we thought was appropriate and he then left.  If we thought we were at watery caves before, we were so wrong!  This cave was called the water cave and in order to get inside we had to climb onto tubes and pull ourselves in with ropes against the current!  At a certain point you have to park your tube and then climb through a tiny gap before you reach another cavern that you have to wade through.   

getting into the water cave via rope and tube...

we were waist deep and still not inside the water cave!

We did this one without a guide, so with only our instinct to guide us it felt a lot more adventurous and scary.  Ocean got bitten by a crab, so her scream sent me clambering up the slippery muddy bank... It is quite scary as you can’t see all the way to the bottom of the water (it being waist high), so you don’t know what is lurking down there – and as she had recently regaled me with a tale of Australian crocodiles, my imagination needed no encouragement to become active...

When we finally reached the outside again, the rain had started and was shortly joined by lightning and thunder.  The woman running the little ‘restaurant’ at the cave entrance had also just decided to kill her dinner – one of the many chickens that had been unwittingly wandering around the place – so we had the opportunity to bear witness to the cries of the chicken as life was taken from it.

With dusk approaching and the storm raging we began our 13km cycle back to town.  It was a beautiful cycle back in spite of the weather – the scenery was just spectacular, and it was a welcome temperature!  We returned home refreshed and drenched!

The next day we had a bit of a slow start, and as we were visiting a nearby cave, we walked and arrived there at about 11.30am just when it was closing for lunch.  We were told that we could swim until the cave opened, so we found ourselves in a little paradise... There was a beautiful blue lagoon that was coming out of a cave, and so we proceeded to spend many hours there paddling and just enjoying the place.  We joined up with three other people and we all a little reluctantly went to visit the cave – the pool area was just so amazing, it was hard to leave.  The cave, known as ‘Chang ‘ cave was used as a hidey hole during the war, so there is a cemented path inside the cave and a lookout point so you can see the whole valley – amazing view!

I could have spent so much more time here as it was just so beautiful, but i had to leave at some point... so after 5 nights i left, with Ocean at my side, we boarded the bus to Luang Prabang.