Around Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng is a place I'd come back to. 

It's exactly what a tourist town should be imo--a little of everything.  There's so much wildlife, all sorts of outdoor activities.  If you're some young Western backpacker, there's all sorts of party stuff, but it's also family friendly.  (Apparently, it used to be a drug center for spoiled backpackers whose mommy and daddy were paying for it all to just indulge themselves in, but they've cleaned up a lot in recent years.  So, it's for everyone now.)  There are markets, shopping, and even a theme park.  The exchange rate is...well, to the Yen, which I am using, it's really not encouraged--vastly undersold.  They buy the USD for more than it's worth, however.

Anyway, I had some hours to kill that moring, so I went to the caves.  that's right, the lovely karsts you see around town are likely to form limestone caves.  Some of which are within walking distance.

There are indeed caves.

So I headed out to one at the crack of dawn...got there before it was even open.

It's kind of annoying, because it's on a resort's property which you have to pay to access.  Still, it's a great escape from the heat, if you can make it up the stairs.

Here are some pictures of its interior:

Than Jian Cave

There's another famous cave nearby, 7 km away, which I rented a bike to see...apparently, there are also a lot of other caves, and I promptly went to the wrong one.  This one was down a dirt road, which turned into gravel, which turned into large rocks.  Not fun to bike down.

The nice thing is that it's not a tourist trap--I paid some guy 20000 to give me a light and show me around--he said 10000 but only gave me 30000 in return for the 50000 I gave him.

That cave was so...cave-like.  There was an abandoned Buddha statue, cave crickets, and quite a few dinner-plate-sized spiders on the walls.  A cool breeze blasts you from the depths.  Water really does sporadically drip down on you.  After it was over, I just laid there on the rocks letting the cool air pore over me.

Stuff I saw:

I had to catch a bus after that, but I feel like I could have spent weeks just doing activities and exploring.

Just to show you Vang Vieng is awesome, here are more pictures of karsts and cows.