I enjoyed my time in South East Asia's capital of drink, drugs and smashing your head open on jagged rocks because you had too many drinks and drugs, despite not indulging in any of those things myself. Though on Thursday I did have a hot coffee for breakfast and then bought a bottle of iced coffee from the convenience store within 30 minutes! What can I say, the hedonistic attitude is infectious.
But enough about my wild caffeinated mornings, I also got away from the shanty resort to see some of Vang Vieng's ace scenery, which is presumably the reason this place became popular among backpackers in the first place, before its popularity became a selling point in itself and kept people like me away.
Tham Jang
It's easy enough to find the caves from town, even as they try to discourage independent travel by not putting up any signs. Just head to the big spiky wall
If you're annoyed by the bridge toll on top of the cave entrance ticket, good luck making your own way across the raging Nam Song
This is probably my third favourite cave I've been to after the Great Cave in Niah National Park and the Batu Caves near Kuala Lumpur, though it'd place higher if there were some monkeys around. What's your third favourite cave?
148 steps, I counted
Rising above the drunken human smog, Vang Vieng doesn't seem so unpleasant any more
This is apparently the only cave they've bothered to install lighting inside, so I got away with being a cheapskate and not buying a torch
These spikes are to keep ghosts out of the cave. I didn't see any, so can only assume it's working. It was supernaturally peaceful in here, I didn't even hear any bugs or bats. I could definitely live in a cave
I thought about hanging around for a few centuries to watch this inevitable meeting, but I was getting hungry. Damn my pesky human biology and lifespan
Bad quality larp
Tham Pha Kham
A somewhat less accessible cave than Tham Jang, I maybe should have got the hint when I had to trudge through a rice field to get there
Someone lost their trousers along the way. This is boding really well
It's a nice enough cave from the outside, but without a torch I didn't get very far
As far as these steps in fact. Though according to some other sodden tourists I met coming out, you have to wade nipples-deep through dirty water to progress anyway. If you still have some doubts about whether or not I'm a thrill-seeker, I'll reveal that I didn't go any further
