We arrived in Vang Vieng in the afternoon and headed across the river to our guest house, Maylin Guest House, which was away from the busy party streets of Vang Vieng and surrounded by high reaching limestone mountains and vibrant rice paddies. The guest house was very comfortable and reasonably priced and the owners were lovely.
A little about the location. Vang Vieng is a piece of paradise that until recently was the place to go floating down the river on inner tubes whislt getting intoxicated and high on various substances. You can still go tubing but the drug part of it has been removed and it has apparently become a much quieter place. As we stayed away from the main party street and we found it to be very peaceful and beautiful place to be.
Lots of people that visit Vang Vieng now go on kayaking trips down the river through the beautiful surroundings and we are sure that it would be an amazing thing to, unfortunately such activities were not in our budget as we had no idea how much we would be spending hitchhiking all the way to Europe!
After exploring the town and the areas close by we decided to head out to Blue Lagoon and Phu Kham Cave. We didn't have any means of transport, again because of our limited budget, so we decided to start walking the 10 km but about five minutes into our walk a pickup truck stopped and asked where we were going. We told them where and it turned that they were also going there! What a spot of luck! The generosity of strangers nevers stops amazing us. It is incredible what a complete stranger will do for you and the lengths they will go to help you are overwhelming.
The ride through the hills was spectacular and the mountains reached up all around us. When we arrived at the entrance, still sitting in the back of the pickup, we were getting money out to pay the entrance fee but didn't need to (we later found out that the driver had paid for us!). In actual fact the driver and his family were from Thailand and were on holiday in Laos. After saying goodbye to the lovely Thai family we went in to explore the lagoon. What we got was a bit of a shock! We learned that it was a public holiday and apparently the whole of Laos had come to the lagoon as well!
Instead of jumping into the lagoon we decided to walk up to the cave. It was a pretty steep climb up the side of a limestone mountain but once we reached the top we realised it had been worth all the sweat!
The small hole in the mountain opened up into a very large cave which was pleasantly cool and refreshing after the hot climb up.
We explored the cave for a little while reveling in the cool, damp air. Like all caves you could hear the bats squeaking and as all other caves with bats you could definitely smell them! We exited the cave, headed back down the mountain and proceeded to hitch a ride almost immediately back into town where we relaxed for the rest of the afternoon.
If you would like to find a quiet spot along the river, cross the bridge in town to the western bank and walk north a little and you will find lots of peaceful places to relax in the shade of the afternoon sun and when necessary, cool down in the river.
This little holiday in our trip was exactly what we needed to recharge out batteries a little and to relax in what felt like a little fairy tale town. What came next when leaving the town was another story!
We hit the road pretty early that morning and had to walk for 3 km or so to find a good hitchhiking spot.
We tried to get a ride for about 45 minutes before walking a little further down the road to another possible spot. A few minutes later we got a ride in a small truck and as there was only space for one passenger in the front Alex had to go in the back with the bags. It turned out to be one of the most breathtaking rides we have ever been in. We really did snake between the vertical limestone mountains and through luscious rice fields before getting dropped of a few km from a town.
We caught another ride into town, had a cheap and tasty noodle soup for lunch and then started walking through town to the other side.
On the way we met lots of students leaving school for lunch and some of them stopped and asked them if we would like to meet one of their teachers, of course we said yes!
We talked about different things, some of them could speak a little English, and we also tried to explain what we were doing. We think they understood but whether they thought it was a good idea is another thing!
We left after a refreshing glass of cold water and headed out onto the road again. This was were things started to get tricky! There was almost no traffic on the road but we did get to say hello to some of the locals!
We walked further along the road and found a little hut to sit in out of the heat of the day and waited for passing cars...there weren't many! After what must have been an hour and a half a truck stopped and offered us a ride to the next town which was on top of a small mountain pass.
The road up was breathtaking and the mountains vast. As far as the eyes could see where huge mountains rising up behind each other. We mentioned that the ride earlier that day was amazing and this was not far off that!.
After some hours we arrived in a down and out dusty town with not much going for it other than the amazing views. We found a cheap guest house, had some dinner and got an early night ready for the next day of hitchhiking!
If you would like to watch our video on this check it out below.
Thanks as always everyone for reading and joining our journey. Any questions about hitchhiking or travelling in Laos? Feel free to ask below!
Alex and Malin
