Vang Vieng Part 1 – Trekking & Caving

Zenia and I awoke early, excited for our big day in Vang Vieng. We ate breakfast at a small café near our guesthouse and then set off to the travel agency (a 1 minute walk around the block) to await our ride. One of the brilliant things about using a tour is that all the little details are taken care of for you, such as arranging transportation. After planning so many vacations and trips over the past few months, we were very happy to allow someone else take care of all the details for us. So we waited at the travel agency for our tour to begin at 9:30 am, excited at the prospect of having no worries for an entire day.

Our tuk tuk arrived loaded down with kayaks strapped to the roof and a large group of people in the back. We joined the mob in the back of the tuk-tuk and set off on a road leading us about 15 km upriver. One of the options for these tours is kayaking on the Nam Song River, but Zenia and I had opted not to kayak as I have never done it before and it seemed like a pretty bad idea to learn on a rampaging river during monsoon season in SE Asia. Instead, we opted for a slightly easier tour package that included trekking, caving, and tubing. We arrived at the riverside in a small village (where the inhabitants don’t speak Lao, but a local language) and unloaded almost all the people from the back of the tuk tuk and the kayaks from the top of the vehicle. Zenia and I then loaded back into the tuk tuk and we set off again, going further upriver to another small village where we unloaded at our starting location.

It turns out our tour was much less popular than the kayaking option and in the end there were only three of us taking a tour with our guide, me, Zenia, and a man named Kevin (from England). This turned out to be one of the best things that could have happened. I mean, we received an almost private tour for the price of a group tour. :) We began our tour in earnest by trekking across a long valley towards the base of some tall mountains where quite a few caves are located. We hiked along a trail that led from the main paved road to a small village and the caves beyond. We walked beside canals and rice paddies that created a lovely escape from the horror of the road itself. You see, it rained in Laos a LOT in the last few days. In fact, it poured. The result of this downpour of water was a muddy, soupy mess of a roadway. The unpaved road was a muddy swamp that sucked your feet down into the morass of reddish-brown goo. Having come ready for some “easy trekking” and our tubing adventure later in the day, our feet were incased in flip flops. It wasn’t long before Zenia and I were splattered all over with mud, front and back, due to the flip of our flops. Each step sucked our feet down into the mud (unless we were lucky and there was a raised, drier patch of ground), forcing us to yank our feet out, which shot mud up into the air in all directions (mostly in the direction of a clean spot on clothing).

Luckily, we had also come prepared to get very dirty. During our walk around town on Saturday afternoon we had seen several people return from tubing on the river and had noticed that they all returned extraordinarily filthy. Therefore, I had purchased shorts, a tank top, and some sandals simply to ruin during our long day on the river and was prepared. So, the mud did not really bother me and as soon as I pointed out to Zenia that in the US and Canada we would pay hundreds of dollars for a Local Laos Mud Skin Rejuvenating Treatment, we agreed that we didn’t mind getting a bit dirty.

So, we trekked through the mud, tramping along the Laos countryside for about 4 km until we arrived at the first set of caves. The mountains in Northern Laos are astounding sights, imposing crags that are carpeted green at the base and along the top, but look as if someone took a cheese grater to the sides of the top, shredding off patches of forest and revealing the jagged stone beneath. The caves that riddle the base of these mountains were formed from the water that runs down through the mountain, causing huge caverns to be cut out of the limestone sides. There are four main caves that tours in Vang Vieng visit and the first stop covers two of them. The first cave is located a few hundred feet up the side of the mountain, requiring a short hike through some woods to reach the entrance. Unfortunately, I don’t know the local name for the cave, so we will have to call it the Buddha Cave. The cave system is comprised of three main large chambers with some small tunnels connecting each of the chambers to the others.

We entered the cave with only a single, small headlamp each to illuminate our way, which meant that we were unable to see much without some concentrated head angling and that looking at each other caused blindness as we flashed each other with our lights. :) The slight illumination made the caves even more mysterious and interesting, however. The first room was a fairly plain chamber, although huge, with a slanting floor that seemed to push the visitor from the entrance further into the depths of the dark. Once again the rain struck a vicious blow, having run into the cave and turned the floor into one slick mass of mud. Zenia and I relinquished our sandals at the entrance to the cave and proceeded inside barefoot. Simply making it 20 feet past the entrance was a test of strength, agility, and balance. We must have made a hilarious sight, slipping and sliding our way across the floors, legs randomly sprawling out to the sides and us catching our balance with our hands on the floor in the mud, just in time to prevent a disastrous fall on our butts that would have left us sliding across the floor with no real way to stop. It took us about 10 minutes to navigate our way inside the entrance to the first cave and even more time to make our way to some drier ground off to the side of the cavern.

Funny Story-
As we neared the bottom of the first chambers’ initial slope, Zenia let out a gasp and grabbed my shoulders, shifting me in my precarious position so that I was between her and some unknown object within the cave. Swaying in my spot, trying desperately not to lose my balance and plunge down into the mud where I was sure to slide across the floor of the cave to the far wall, I asked what was wrong. In reply, a shaky arm came up next to my shoulder, pointed into the distance and Zenia said, “I saw eyes!” At this moment I could just imagine what she was thinking, “A bear is here in the cave with us!” but I was thinking something more along the lines of, “Ooo! A dragon?” Excitement laced through me, mixed with a heavy dose of trepidation at the thought of a wild Laos beast in our cave. Fortunately and unfortunately, it was neither a bear nor a dragon. As I looked in the direction of her pointing finger, my headlamp illuminated the head and body of a black dog, the same dog that had been following us from the local village and through the mountains, into the cave. Yes, indeed. Zenia had seen the reflective eyes of the vicious cave dog – complete with wagging tail and smiling face. With a quick laugh by me, and a reassurance that there were no bears from our guide, we set off again.

The cave itself was beautiful and we enjoyed our periodic looks around, when our balance was enough secured to allow us to break from our extreme concentration on our feet. When it came time to move into the next two chambers Zenia opted to remain behind, tired of the arduous caving and already feeling some cramping in her legs and feet from the exertion. Keven, our guide, and I pushed on, however, and went deeper into the pits. Each room was more stunning than the last. The second was a large, plain chamber where, we were informed, local kids often liked to come to play a game of football in the dark. But the third was the best. This cave sported a pool of water at the far end where it collected from a continuous stream feeding down from the ceiling. It also had what was called a “snake rock.” This was a bit of limestone on the floor of the cave where the water had dissolved some of the rock, creating small channels on the floor where the water would run back and forth in serpentine streams, separated by thin rock walls. Once you stand below this series of switchbacks you can see a snake formed in the walls that jut out of the floor.

We spent quite a while exploring these caves, about 30 minutes in rapt fascination with our surroundings, before finally returning to the main cave and Zenia and then slowly making our way across the floor towards the entrance once again. In the end I gave up the fight of keeping any bit of myself clean and bent over to use my hands to assist hauling me up the slope while my feet kept trying to slide away from me. When we reached the outside world again it was something of a relief, if only to not be struggling against the slick mud. After a quick hike back down the hillside, we took another trail across the base of the mountain to our second cave of the day.

***I am now getting ready to leave Vientiane for Thailand by bus and cannot finish this day’s adventures at this time. Tune in tomorrow for the amazing conclusion to my Vang Vieng fun and some news about my travels back to Thailand and to the island of Phuket, the next stop in my journey.