24/10/12 to 26/10/12. The Bus to Vang Vieng was the usual stomach churning ride up into the mountains, slowed partly on the exit from Vientiane by roadworks. Despite the sign clearly saying "Road Closed", our driver decided to try his luck anyway. Sure enough a kilometre later he was trying to Do a 3-point turn in a narrow street after coming face to face with two diggers. Half an hour later we were back on Track.
The scenery in Vang Vieng was stunning. It has a Reputation as a Party town, but to our relief this seemed to be limited to a couple of streets in the centre. Also as we were visiting just before the main tourist season, it was nicely quiet. We booked into a Lodge on the "other side" of the river with a lovely garden and good omelettes. The footbridge had been washed away by the river during the rainy season (as it is every year), so we had to use a toll bridge downriver.
The next Day we went caving and kayaking. Before we entered the cave our guide stopped us as he'd spotted a snake in the tree on the beach. It turned out to be a venomous Green Tree Snake. They usually eat chickens and a bite from one of these snakes and you're dead in 30 minutes.
We entered the cave on an inflated inner tube of a tractor tyre. This is called "tubing". Lying on the tube you either float down river, going over rapids, or in our case, we pulled ourselves along inside the cave using a rope attached to the wallas you are lying on your back, it is a good way to see the rock formations and stalactites on the roof of the cave. The cave was about 500m long, so we spent a good hour getting to the end and back. It was good fun. We came out of the cave for a bbq lunch, but the snake had gone. Apparently some locals came to catch it and it was barbequed for a tasty snack.
In the afternoon we went kayaking for 12km down the river over some gentle rapids. Dave did most of the paddling and Flora got very wet as payback for this.
The next day we went to another cave, this time on foot. It was on top of a high mountain and we took a rocky path to reach the cave. It was huge and a golden Buddha was lying in the in the opening chamber. We then went deep inside the slippery and very dark cave with a only a tiny torch to help us both to see anything. The cave was massive inside and we felt a bit like Mulder and Scully from the X-files. We heard noises that we couldn’t recognise as we went deeper into the cave. It could have been anything, a snake, some bats, or Aliens???? We walked a bit faster on our way out.
Outside the cave was the Blue Lagoon. We had a swim and played with some ropes set up to swing from and a dived from a tree. The water was cool and transparent and we were surrounded by hundreds of fish as we swam.
We had time to visit one more cave in the afternoon, which was more developed (there was a footpath inside with handrails). This reminded us of a cave from an Indiana Jones film, or a Bond villain's underground lair.
On our way back to town to get dinner, the heavens opened and we had heavy rain that we stood and watched from under a tin roof. The sound was impressive and in the space of 15 minutes, water was everywhere.
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