Vientiane to Vang Vieng
It may not be big population-wise, but Vientiane does seem to spread out – its buildings sprawling out many kilometres along the road North to Vang Vieng. In true Asian style the shop fronts spilled out onto the streets with their varied merchandise of all manner of plastic goods, electrical goods, rattan goods, and textiles. And with vividly coloured Buddhas, elephants, storks and stupas with which to decorate your garden, office or temple.
The minibus was packed with tourists like us. And clearly not made with tall foreign site-seers in mind. So, sitting at the back we had only a limited view of the roadsides as we drove past. But they did gradually give way to more rural scenes of paddy fields, coconut palms and the occasional wallowing buffalo. After a quick lunch break (“we stop here 17 minutes”) of grilled pork and sticky rice, we left the flat Mekong plain and started to climb into the wooded hills of central Laos (our driver at this point told us all to put our seatbelts on (protection in case we didn’t manage to stay on the winding road?) The road here did become even worse with just short stretches of pot-holed tarmac interspersed with ungraded gravel and dust – I don’t think they were ever made to cope with the volume of traffic or the impact of each year’s rainy season. The little glimpses we caught of the scenery though were promising, and eventually after five hours and 157km we rolled into the backpackers’ Mecca of Vang Vieng.
A few years ago, the influx of young Western backpackers had brought Vang Vieng a very bad name, flooding the town with alcohol, drugs and low-quality hostels and bars. Safety standards were appalling and apparently several tourists died on the various adventure activities. The Wikipedia description of the town hardly paints an inspiring picture:
There are concerns that the town is in danger of losing its charm as it becomes full of tourists, mushroom shakes, and episodes of Friends, a US sitcom shown in many bars.[11] The New Zealand Herald wrote, “If teenagers ruled the world, it might resemble Vang Vieng”.[12] Safety measures for the tubing have been described as “non existent”. Tubing combined with heavy drinking has resulted in tourist drownings.[13] It was reported that 22 tourists died on the river in 2011. – Wikipedia
The authorities have worked hard to improve its image, so, while still heaving with backpackers and bars, it does have a certain charm, and nothing can really detract from the stunning beauty of the surrounding limestone mountains.
