After a lovely (sarcastic) 4 hour bus ride through rural Laos, it was time for us to experience Vang Vieng. Upon arriving, we went straight for the touristy beach bar, to have a beer on the water celebrating the fact we were alive. As two people who spent a lot of time around beaches as kids (myself in the Rockaways and Hillary in Miami) we can appreciate some good waterside lounging; sitting with our toes in the water, with books and beers in our hands, is a pretty good way to spend an afternoon. We followed that up with dinner at a local restaurant, which left a lot to be desired, before walking around to see the town a bit. My first impression was not spectacular. It seemed like it was trying to be an authentic beach town in the middle of Laos, but instead ended up being a slovenly congregation of people looking for nothing other than drinking, drugs, and ‘new friends’ looking for the same.

That first impression may have been influenced a bit by the fact that I was grumpy from the ride up, because the second day there left a far better taste in my mouth. As Hillary mentioned, we spent the day bicycling the area outside of town, exploring some caves along the way, and finally finding a good place to eat. We also managed to get back to the bar on the river for some more relaxation time, and I was thankful to have experienced the nicer aspects of Vang Vieng before we had to leave the last day.

My highlight of our time there was definitely the bike ride and our time exploring the cave. The mountains that surrounded all we did made it feel like we were riding and climbing through a movie set the entire afternoon, and it was an incredibly surreal experience.

Ultimately, I left Vang Vieng with the thought that at different points in my life and maturity I would have moved there, hated it there, or been content to pass through and see it briefly. Today, I definitely fall into the later category – I’m glad we went and got some nice relaxing outside of the ‘bigger’ cities in the country (they are still not very big compared to what we are used to), but 2 days was definitely enough.

Now off to Luang Prabang…