Vang Vieng

For my previous posts on this adventure, click

Chinese railway

From our hotel in Luang Prabang, we went in vans to the new high-speed train to Vang Vieng. (It actually wasn’t that fast, the displayed speed got as high as 150 km/hr, but I’ve been on others in Spain and Japan that go twice as fast.)

The railway was finished in 2021, and built by the Chinese. Before the train, the journey was 8 hours by winding roads, and now it’s only one hour. The packed train was not all that comfortable, but I slept the whole time, due to our 5 am alms giving mission.

Once off the train, we could already get a taste of the spectacular karst scenery in Vang Vieng, adventure capital of Laos. Karst is limestone rock formations. These mountains, and the Nam Song river, are the backdrop for all kinds of activities.

Our hotel balconies offered views of the hot air balloons that take off in the early morning or late afternoon.

We went to the Elephant Bar rooftop, where we had amazing views of the balloons and paragliders. Paragliding is gliding under a parachute, strapped to someone steering it. I have done it a few times. There is also paramotoring available here, which looks like the same thing, but you’re sitting in a chair. That looked like something I can do even if I’m in a wheelchair, so I left it for another time. Or maybe not.

Recent history of Vang Vieng

From the 1990s to the 2010s, Vang Vieng was known as a debauched party town for backpackers. The most popular sport for the mostly young budget travelers was tubing, or floating down the river on an inner tube, stopping at riverside bars, then throwing themselves off crude swings or slides into the river.

The riverside was famous for its “happy bars” where you could order booze, drugs, and drug-laced food, delivered by conveyor belts. All this, combined with a shallow river and sharp rocks, led to a lot of injuries, and deaths. The Laos government finally clamped down on these activities in 2012, after 27 deaths in the previous year. The bars with swings and slides were torn down. Tubing and bars returned, in a much more controlled atmosphere, and the town rebranded as an adventure capital. Apparently you can still find “happy” menus, weed or mushrooms or hard drugs, at some of the riverside bars.

Then, late in 2025, six tourists at a hostel died from drinking alcohol tainted with methanol. The methanol is cheaper than alcohol, and it’s still undetermined whether the methanol was added at the factory, at one of the bars, or at the hostel.

Viewpoint and blue lagoon adventure

The next morning, a few of us went on an adventure we booked through a local tour operator. Billed as a moderate hike to a viewpoint, then a blue lagoon, and a cave, it looked like a great way to see the countryside.

As we drove in the back of a pickup truck towards a hut we could see on the tallest peak, I assumed we would drive part of the way up to the peak. I was wrong.

The path from the bottom was very steep even at the start, with some of the harder parts covered with ladders and ropes. But most of the trail was rock climbing. I fell behind early, but carried on, scrambling and trying to find something to hold on to. I got near the top, when one of the guides accompanying us told me that the rest was steeper. At that point I turned back, since I knew it would take me longer going down than going up.

One of our group got to the viewpoint hut, but ripped his shorts while descending, because you had to stretch your legs so far apart for the next foothold. It was a little ridiculous but a lot of people got there. Everyone had dirty butts since it was easier to sit for some parts on the way down.

Once we were all down, we drove to the Blue Lagoon. There, we could scramble up rocks to a cave with a buddha inside, but I stayed at the lagoon and had a dip instead.

Balloon ride

Back at the hotel, I had another dip in the pool and got ready for our next adventure, a hot air balloon ride. The balloon company drove us to the outskirts of town, where the balloons were prepared by adding heated air.