Visiting Vang Vieng

Visiting Vang Vieng

From Vientiane it took us three hours to travel to Vang Vieng. Around 6 p.m the car stopped right at the centre of Vang Vieng town. Upon getting off I was surprised since it was different from what I expected before our Vang Vieng tour. It is very small and a little shabby but full of tourists and bars. That amazement soon went by as we had to start looking for a guest house, which is expected to be very difficult. We call places, walking down streets leading to the river but all the guest house had been fully booked. Luckily, at last we found Bountang Guest House right near the centre of the town. Several people came up to us offering us to share a room but we five people needed a big one. In the end, a Thai guy appear suddenly telling that he had found a large room and wanted to share. The rent for each per day is 15000kip. So we stayed in this room all the time in Vang Vieng. It was really spacious, occupied by six people but it was just only half full.

At 9 p.m we started going out for dinner and asked Net to join us. We chose Sanaxay Restaurant which specializing in Lao, Thai food and some Western dishees. We had a nice meal there with fish, stirfried bean pork, steamed fish and sticky rice. We also tried fruit shake( a mix of ice and ground fruit such as orange, coconut, banana, mango, papaya) a very tasty and cool drinks that we often drink in Vientian and Luang Prabang, too.
After dinner we strolled around the town. Curiously, it was barely 10.30 pm but the streets were very deserted while it was still busy just one hour ago. The most noticeable sound is from televions in bars. These bars can be call TV bar or Friend bar with a big screen showing Friends all the time. Here bars are often divided into small cell and the visitors can have their knee leaning against separating wooden bar watching the movie.
On the way back to the guesthouse we are attracted by the good smell of Pancake made in a mobile stall. It is 10000kip each and can have different flavour depending on your taste… The next day we went on a city tour of the surrounding of Vang Vieng. We dropped by a market to the north of this town and found it very interesting and charming with all kind of stuff exchanged. (to be continued)