We've just finished up a long stay in Vang Vieng. It's a small town about halfway between Vientiane and Luang Prabang. The bus trip up was good, the usual delay in starting, but we arrived after 3 1/2 hours so we had plenty of time to find somewhere to stay. The bus dropped us right in the middle of town (at Melany Guesthouse), so we didn't even have to worry about getting a tuk tuk anywhere (still find it weird that they build their bus stations 8 or 9 km out of town in all the major cities here in Laos).

Ended up getting a room at our first choice - Vang Vieng Orchid Guesthouse (US$6 ground floor, fan, hot water bathroom) . It's down by the riverside (not the Mekong anymore, now we're on the Nam Song) over looking the 'bar island' - which is in fact an island packed full of bars with great bamboo platforms sitting over the water - perfect for taking a late afternoon drink, watching the sunset, paddling in the cool, clear waters - ahhh bliss!

The town itself is nothing special, a whole heap of almost identical restaurant/bars continually showing Friends episodes. All the menus are fairly similar, with a fairly typical assortment of boring dishes - what they think westerners want to eat. There are a few exceptions, but it is very definitely a backpacker town. Still, we managed to find a couple of good places to eat, and to be honest, we weren't there for the town...

The countryside around Vang Vieng is full of limestone caves and karst formations. The nature here is breathtakingly beautiful. It's really just amazing sitting around looking out at the landscape .

On thing which has become really popular on the backpacking circuit is tubing down the Nam Song. It costs 35000kip (US$3.50) and that includes use of the tube, a life jacket if you want it (needed during the wet season, but not necessary now) and a tuk tuk ride to the start. You start about 3km north of town and just float on down the river until you get back down to bar island and the town. Along the way there are a whole heap of bars (suprise suprise), and they've built swings and flying foxes down into the river. Heaps of fun! We did the trip twice while we were here. It's a really great way to spend a day, just floating slowly down the river stopping for a beer or a bite to eat now and then.

We also did a cave/kayak tour (US$12). Started off driving to a village 20km north of town right in the middle of a really rocky/cliffy area. There are a few caves up there, but we only went to two of them. Elephant Cave (Tham Xang) is right there in the village (Ban Tham Xang), and is just a shallow opening that has an elephant shaped stalagmite which gave it the name . The other cave we went into was the Water Cave (Tham Nam). At the end of the dry season you can apparently wade into the cave, but at the beginning of the dry season (i.e. now), the water is still high enough that you have to go in on tubes. Basically the same as black water rafting in NZ, but way warmer :) That was really cool, and we were well glad of having a water proof camera with us - we'll post some photos at some stage. After lunch we headed down stream a bit to where we'd start kayaking, and then paddled our way back down to Vang Vieng in time for sunset. Super.

The other days we were in town we just checked out some of the other local caves. Phou Kham is about 7km from town, and after attempting to get a tuk tuk there (they wanted 100,000kip), or hiring a bike (they needed our passports as a guarantee and we couldn't be bothered going to get them) we decided to walk it. We headed off across the bridge but then a tractor driver offered us a lift for 50,000kip, so we took him up on his offer. It's worth mentioning that a tractor here isn't really a tractor. It's like a tractor motor on two wheels with a two wheeled trailer attached by a long shaft. The driver sits on the front of the trailer and drives the thing with a set of oversized motorbike handle bars. Noisy, slow and uncomfortable - but a lot of fun, especially when fording rivers. These things can go pretty much anywhere, which is why they call them donkeys :)

Anyway, the cave itself was at the top of a 200m steep climb, with a small buddhist temple just inside (they do that a lot here, build buddhist temples in caves), and then you could continue further into the cave and explore all by yourself . We went in maybe 100m or so before deciding to come back out. Pretty cool to just be able to climb around in there. Down the bottom, outside the cave, there is a small lagoon with really blue water (and a swing) so it was nice to be able to take a swim before grabbing some lunch at the little restaurant there.

We decided to walk home so we could get some photos of the surrounding area, but after about 20 minutes or so, a friendly brit rolled up in his hired 4wd and offered us a lift back to town - it would have been rude to say no :)

There was one other cave we did, 3km south of town which we actually walked to - shock horror! Tham Jang is the most well known of the local caves and the most 'developed'. They've put in a raised walkway to protect the formations as well as electric lights. We figured we'd get there before the rush, so aimed to be there for their opening at 8am. We were there at 10 past and then had to wait 30 minutes until the boss arrived with the keys . So much for an early start :) Still, it was worth being there before the rush - when we went in there was just one other couple there, but when we came out 40 minutes later the cave was packed with a couple of tour groups.  Down below the cave there is a spring the comes out from somewhere inside. You can evidently swim 80m into the cave along it, but it was a bit chilly so we gave that a miss.

Have to say that we really fell in love with Vang Vieng - in spite of the touristy town. Super place to come and relax, we're already talking about coming back, and if things work that way, we may even come back at the end of this trip.

We leave tomorrow for Luang Prabang. It's 240km from here and they say it takes 5 hours on a minibus (US$10.50) or 6 hours with a VIP bus (US$9.50). That says a lot about the roads, and the minibuses take a maximum of 10 people and look pretty comfortable, so we figure its worth the extra dollar. Should get in to Luang Prabang some time between 2 and 3 in the afternoon which will give us plenty of time to find a place to stay - expecting it to be pretty full what with New Years and everything...