Finally! The big break day has arrived! Woke up at a leisurely 9am today. No bike packing checklist, no final route checks, no cycling and one entire day of staying in the same town for more than 20 hours.
Vang Vieng, a town nestled among dramatic limestone mountains was once famous as an adventure destination with plenty of amazing sites for caving, kayaking, mountain biking and rock climbing. However in the last few years it has become more of a party destination and for the 2 nights I stayed there I could see why it was beginning to lose its rustic, small town appeal.
Keeping with the original spirit of the town, I had to try out tubing - the rite of passage for every backpacker travelling South East Asia. I joined my new friends, John and Jess, an Australian couple from Melbourne to try it out. We wanted to mix up the tubing (essentially floating along the river on a large, inflated truck tube) with caving, especially since Vang Vieng had some really interesting caves to offer. Off we headed to the Tham Sang triangle to begin our caving odyssey. The entrance to the caves was a turn off Highway 13, about 14km from Vang Vieng at a totally nondescript village. It was good that we chose a local guide (through the highly recommended adventure operator Green Discovery Laos). Else we would have either never found the caves or got miserably trapped in them like some tourists recently did.
The caves themselves were stunning - massive and endless chambers of rock beneath huge limestone mountains and hidden from plain view by dense vegetation. The largest of the caves, Tham Sang (Elephant Cave), had a myriad of tempting nooks and crannies to explore, with each leading deeper into the honeycomb of tunnels. The most exciting of them however was the Tham Nam (Water Cave) which was only accessible by getting into a tube and through a partially submerged cave entrance which then opened up to a huge tunnel system. The tunnels are fully submerged during the wet season and even now were only 1-2 metres from the water surface.
After the hard morning and afternoon of adventure, I spent the rest of the evening not trying to think too much of the next day and chose to chill out at the Vang Vieng bakery cafe with some intoxicatingly strong and sweet Lao coffee. However, I did end up plotting the climb gradients and climb markers for the next 2 days of cycling.
The most stunning vistas on this bike adventure happen tomorrow. Looking forward to it!
View more pictures on facebook: Laos Bike Adventure - Day 5
Ashwin Subramaniam
Vang Vieng, a town nestled among dramatic limestone mountains was once famous as an adventure destination with plenty of amazing sites for caving, kayaking, mountain biking and rock climbing. However in the last few years it has become more of a party destination and for the 2 nights I stayed there I could see why it was beginning to lose its rustic, small town appeal.
Keeping with the original spirit of the town, I had to try out tubing - the rite of passage for every backpacker travelling South East Asia. I joined my new friends, John and Jess, an Australian couple from Melbourne to try it out. We wanted to mix up the tubing (essentially floating along the river on a large, inflated truck tube) with caving, especially since Vang Vieng had some really interesting caves to offer. Off we headed to the Tham Sang triangle to begin our caving odyssey. The entrance to the caves was a turn off Highway 13, about 14km from Vang Vieng at a totally nondescript village. It was good that we chose a local guide (through the highly recommended adventure operator Green Discovery Laos). Else we would have either never found the caves or got miserably trapped in them like some tourists recently did.
The caves themselves were stunning - massive and endless chambers of rock beneath huge limestone mountains and hidden from plain view by dense vegetation. The largest of the caves, Tham Sang (Elephant Cave), had a myriad of tempting nooks and crannies to explore, with each leading deeper into the honeycomb of tunnels. The most exciting of them however was the Tham Nam (Water Cave) which was only accessible by getting into a tube and through a partially submerged cave entrance which then opened up to a huge tunnel system. The tunnels are fully submerged during the wet season and even now were only 1-2 metres from the water surface.
After the hard morning and afternoon of adventure, I spent the rest of the evening not trying to think too much of the next day and chose to chill out at the Vang Vieng bakery cafe with some intoxicatingly strong and sweet Lao coffee. However, I did end up plotting the climb gradients and climb markers for the next 2 days of cycling.
The most stunning vistas on this bike adventure happen tomorrow. Looking forward to it!
View more pictures on facebook: Laos Bike Adventure - Day 5
Ashwin Subramaniam
RSS Feed