Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng would be a tiny farming village were it not for the tourist industry. The resorts, hostels, restaurants, tour companies, motorbike rental shops, and massage parlors are all concentrated in a short drag on two streets along the Nam Song River. Outside of the tourist strip, there's a small temple, a morning market, and a dozen shops that actually cater to the locals. The amenity here is the outdoor natural beauty of the surrounding area.

Vang Vieng is perfectly flat, but it's surrounded by individual mountains that shoot up into the sky. There aren't any mountain ranges, just standalone giant mountains. I remember seeing mountains like this in Chinese artwork as a kid and I just assumed the Chinese must be terrible at drawing mountains. I chalked it up to idiosyncrasies of the artwork of another place in time, like the hilarious medieval paintings of baby Jesus depicted as a Homunculus. I thought mountains always appeared in groups. I had no idea they could break out on their own with a solo act.

Within a 45 minute motorbike ride, there are beautiful hiking trails, lagoons filled with perfectly blue spring water, and remarkable systems of caves. The area only became a destination because of this natural beauty, but eventually the tourist industry pushed too hard and turned it into an awful party town. The independent motorbike exploration was replaced by tuktuk tours that would supply the young tourists with outrageous amounts of alcohol and nitrous oxide balloons. Kayaking on the Nam Song River was replaced by tubing, and bars popped up all over the river playing horrible loud music. The serene and tranquil vibe was obliterated and it became a party town.

Drunk tubing is a dumb activity that's ruining the experience of the Salt River near Phoenix. If you kayak or paddle board down the Salt in the early morning, you'll see more wild horses than people. If you show up a few hours later, you're certainly not going to see a horse, but you'll struggle to paddle past a congested mess of drunk assholes blaring music. In Vang Vieng, though, young people—typically less experienced alcoholics—were the primary tubing demographic, and unsettling numbers kept dying. They overdosed. They drowned. They dove off a cliff and cracked their heads on a bunch of rocks. After a decade of twenty or thirty drunk tourists dying every year, the government cracked down, closed the unlicensed bars, and started policing the area for illegal drugs.

I took a kayak down the river on my first afternoon in town. There are still riverside bars, but it's considerably tamer than it was a few years ago. Kayaks can go a longer distance than a tube (for obvious reasons) so there were large stretches of the trip without any tubers. I'm grateful for that, because it's a beautiful river.

The next day I rented a scooter and headed out early in the morning to explore the lagoons and caves. There are enough that you could probably spend two or three days trying to see everything, but the closest spots to town are usually a madhouse. Blue Lagoon 1 was supposed to be the most congested attraction, but I was one of the first people to arrive.

Past the lagoon is a cave that I had all to myself. Just before the entrance was a vendor renting headlamps, which was entirely necessary for the areas further in that were pitch black. One area was so large that my light barely reached the other end of the cave.

Next I visited a viewpoint that required a challenging hike up one of those distinctively Asian mountains. Maybe I just attacked it too quickly, but I think I've become pretty deconditioned after months without my regular gym and hiking routine. I've walked a lot, but that's insufficient.

It was also tough on the way down because the rocks were horribly spiky.

On the ride out to the next lagoon I had to stop on the road and admire the farms. Families here live in tiny shacks built on stilts. Their farms don't produce much income, but their crops feed their countrymen. Despite the financial poverty these people experience, their farms are surrounded by some of the most beautiful landscape in the world. They have a cohesive and interdependent community. Their neighbors believe what they believe. Their society isn't undergoing any kind of existential crisis. In a lot of ways, they have a better shot at living peaceful lives.

The next lagoon had a much smaller swimming area but was supposed to have a really impressive cave. I trekked out toward the cave entrance, but this time there was no vendor renting headlamps. I climbed down a questionable wooden staircase and fooled around in the dark with my cell phone flashlight for a little while, but ultimately I decided that if I was going to go exploring rural caves in developing nations with insufficient gear, I probably shouldn't do it alone.

I felt very confident with that decision when I slipped and fell getting into the lagoon for a swim. The staircase leading to the pool was completely covered in algae. I'm glad my hand stopped my fall and my head went into the water. It very easily could have been my head landing on the rocks. I still played on the rope swing and zip line, but my hand was bleeding an unsettling amount and I was worried about the cleanliness of the water, so I headed back toward town to get a bandage. The first little roadside store I walked into took care of me and wouldn't accept any payment.

I took a different route back into town because I wanted to see Vang Viang, a town just outside of Vang Vieng that happens to be closer to all of the area's natural attractions. It's a mystery that it didn't become the tourist area instead.

A bridge was closed on the route to Vang Viang, and a sign directed vehicles to cross over a small rocky stream below. The cars did it without issue, but most of the scooter operators looked hesitant. A Swiss couple at the hostel had told me they crossed it without too much difficulty, so I went for it. Unfortunately I hit an impassible rock, gassed it, and drove the back tire into the mud. I had to lift the scooter out of the mud and carry it to a dry spot, but I made it out of there.

I hope Vang Vieng can grow up and avoid becoming an outrageous party town again. It's probably the prettiest place I've been in Asia so far. You could easily spend a week exploring with proper gear.

Next stop: Luang Prabang