The Narrow Road: Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng: infamous Laos party town; home of tubing; site of numerous drunken tourist deaths every year.

I'd heard terrible things about Vang Vieng. I visualised an endless, bobbing procession of Western kids, smacked up on opiates and buckets of Lao Lao whisky, floating on inner tubes, vomiting into the Nam Khong. Last year 27 tourists died tubing, from drowning or leaping into the river from a great height and breaking their heads open on rocks.

Whether it was a low-season lull or the fact that most of the riverside bars had been closed due to tourist deaths a few weeks before, we saw very little evidence of Vang Vieng's seedier side.

We saw was a quiet, if very tourist-centric, town on the banks of the river, surrounded by beautiful countryside. We found a nice guest house on the Southern end of town, called Jammee, and ended up staying for about week.

We were keen to get out and soak up some of the natural beauty that Vang Vieng is also famous for. Just ouside of the town, across the river, extends green countryside and limestone mountains. A few days after we arrived, we rented a couple of shoddy beach cruisers and attempted to the Phou Kham caves, site of the locally famous "blue lagoon". Our bikes were awful, the sun was blazing, and the road was atrocious. I think we managed to get about 4km out of town before we had to admit defeat and turn back.

Resolving to try again with better gear, we settled for Xang caves - a small set of caves extending into one of the surrounding mountains - just down the road from our guest house.

The climb up

The interior - best I could get with my camera phone

After a lengthy climb, the caves themselves were blessedly cool if a little small and underwhelming. A quick three minute walk from the entrance brought you out into the open air again.

The view from the top

At the base of the mountain, a river flowed out of the cave system on its way to the Nam Khong. The water was wonderfully cold. Shoals of fish nibbled at my toes.

My cave lust not quite sated, the next day we saddled up on some proper mountain bikes and made for Phou Kham once again. It was raining heavily most of the way there but the improved gear and temperature made all the difference and, after about an hour's ride past several places purporting to be Phou Kham, we found the real deal.

Unlike Xang there were no stairs and no lights in the caves. We rented head torches at the bottom and hoisted ourselves up a cliff face to the entrance.

The cave itself was very dark but large - no hand rails, no walkways as in Xang, just dripping limestone. It was excellent. My camera phone was woefully inadequate at taking photos in the dark but this video might give you an idea...