Is it worth making a visit to Laos? I have heard that it is boring except for Luang Prabang and even there it is not great because too many tourist. Any information on this is appreciated.
Is it worth making a visit to Laos? I have heard that it is boring except for Luang Prabang and even there it is not great because too many tourist. Any information on this is appreciated.
Will Rogers said, "I never met a man I didn't like", but he never met Donald Trump.
I visited several years ago. Flew into Luang Prabang. I found it interesting but needed a driver to get to most things I wanted to see. I stayed slightly out of town by the Mekong. It was cheap, good restaurants, some good real massage spa which I went to daily, and a lot of natural beauty in adjacent areas. The driver took me to some of their nightclubs which I found boring. I then went by car to Vang Vieng- beautiful natural area along the river with limestone cliffs off in the distance, but like one big backpackers town, then onto Vietanne which I found boring as hell and their sights did nothing for me.
I liked Siem Reap much better. Good sightseeing, great restaurants, cheap accomodations, great shopping at the market (bought some of the nicest silk I have seen there), nice people. I really enjoyed it. I also found it much easier to explore on foot and met some very nice folks. I thought it had a lot more culture than Laos.
If you burn your neighbors house down, it doesn't make your house look any better. - Lou Holtz
It all depends on what you like. I tend to disregard people who say a place has too many tourist. What they are really saying is "I am not a tourist. I am that much superior being, a traveller". Safe to ignore.
The link is to the Laos section of Tingtong. Starting 1st Jan 2010 is a series of posts I made about a tour starting in Southern Laos and ending in Luang Prabang. Whether it's the sort of place you want to visit - up to you.
http://www.gaytingtong.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3883
Sorry, I won't be able to answer questions. Starting tomorrow I will, as it happens be revisiting Luang Prabang and won't be taking a computer with me
I think Laos is worth visiting, probably several times.
Laos is wonderful, I go every year, sometimes twice. It's pretty low key but with beautiful landscapes and charming people. Vientiane can be fun as can Luang Prabang if you know where to go. The boys are often extremely cute and fun to hang out with. Vang Vieng is usually full of the younger crowd, a kind of inland Magaluf, but most of the rave bars have been shut down so there are fewer barely clad teenagers roaming the town now, so you have to make do with karsts not ass to look at. Food is good, but travel is slow unless you fly.
I am quoting this in full. I would like to know more from your post than you offered. Vang Viang a location I know nothing about, and Magulaf??? Who what where is that.Originally Posted by paulo15
Karsts--tried to get a meaning from dictionary but it must be too subtle.
Please take the time to know more about what you are saying, as it sounds interesting.
Wombat : an Australian marsupial that eats,roots and leaves
Hi,
Magaluf, a town in Spain known for young people getting obscenely drunk and being scantily clad.
Vang Vieng, a town in Laos known for young people getting obscenely drunk and being scantily clad.
Magaluf is in Majorca one of Spain's Balearic Islands.
Vang Vieng is a 4 hour bus ride north of Vientiane.
Karsts, large limestone erections, often surprising in their suddenness.
Also seen in Krabi province, Thailand and Halong bay, Vietnam.
:love4:
Quick work I had just put Vang Vieng into the local newspaper The Age, for what they might have, and this came up. Still sounds interesting and might save that trip to Spain this year.
http://www.theage.com.au/travel/holiday ... 2cr95.html
Party's over for backpacker mecca
No1 Australian agent to Sri Lanka. 10 day fully guided tour from $1195
Tourists enjoy one of Vang Vieng's riverside bars. In the wake of several high-profile deaths, a crackdown by authorities has seen many of the bars closed down.
Once the party mecca of South-East Asia for backpackers, Vang Vieng has cleaned up its act - but tourists are staying away, writes David Whitley.
The Oh La La bar is certainly trying. The sign outside is offering free shots all night and a free cocktail for all ladies who arrive between 6pm and 9pm. But it's 9pm, and there are just eight customers тАУ all male, and seemingly more interested in a quiet game of pool than hell-raising.
Vang Vieng in Laos, until recently the backpacker party capital of South-East Asia, has changed following a government clampdown in late August. Whether that's for the better or the worse depends on your perspective. And the reality on the ground doesn't necessarily reflect the speculative rumours than filter down the backpacker grapevine.
The party scene in Vang Vieng appeared surprisingly quickly. In 2006, it was still essentially a riverside village with dirt roads, a spectacular limestone karst backdrop and a small adventure tourism industry.
Suddenly, a different scene started to come in. It was nominally based around tubing тАУ floating down the Nam Song river in tractor tyre inner tubes. Along the 4km tubing route, riverside bars sprang up as ports of call. Tubers made a day of it, fuelled by free shots of the firewater-esque lao-lao whisky, super-potent cocktails and openly-sold drugs.
To a backdrop of pounding music, the often blind drunk tubers would throw themselves into the river off the platforms, flying foxes and slides that the bars had constructed to lure people in. Unfortunately, intoxicated bravado lead to injuries тАУ from sprained ankles to fractured skulls тАУ and fatalities.
Quite how many died depends on who you ask. Common consensus is that at least 20 died in 2011, while seven тАУ including two Australians - had died in 2012 before the government crackdown.
A boat trip up the Nam Song shows how thoroughly the Lao authorities blitzed Vang Vieng. The riverside bars along the tubing course have not just been closed тАУ most of them have been dismantled.
The slides, giant swings and zipline plunges of the 'Water Fun Park' have also been torn apart, leaving only a concrete platform as evidence.
Further south on Saysong Island тАУ where after-dark parties would regularly go on until around 4am тАУ the mud tracks lead only to abandoned shacks. These were once inhabited by booming bars, and the Rock Bar is an exemplary ruin. The pool table is still under the thatched roof, but wooden planks are haphazardly stacked around it like firewood.
The purge has proved highly controversial in Vang Vieng. The locals may not have approved of the riverside hedonism and boorish behaviour shown by the backpackers in the town, but visitor numbers have taken a big hit since the authorities stepped in. Many businesses are clearly struggling.
Xai Anou from the Viengvilay Guesthouse admits that only four or five of his 50 rooms are occupied.
тАЬRight now it is the low season,тАЭ he says. тАЬBut it should be the high season now.
тАЬThere are not many people around тАУ and businesses are closing down because there are no customers. It is crazy.тАЭ
Misinformation is part of the problem. Guesthouse owner Chris Perkins says: тАЬPotential guests are telling me that they have heard the tubing has stopped. I have to tell them that the tubing hasn't stopped тАУ it's just the opportunity to kill yourself while doing it that has gone.тАЭ
The tubing is a co-operative scheme and the profits filter back to the local community rather than lining corporate pockets. A drop in the number of people tubing has an adverse effect on the community as a whole. Touy Sisouat at the tubing centre says that numbers are down significantly. тАЬLast November, we would have maybe 800 people every day. This November, it is about 130 people.
тАЬThere is no drink on the river. It is bad for business тАУ and there is less money for the children.тАЭ
It's unfortunate that tubing has become the bogeyman for Vang Vieng's tragedies. It's not an extreme sport unless water levels are abnormally high in the wet season, and every tuber is offered a free life jacket. The problem was that most tubers would turn the jackets down then attempt dangerous stunts whilst irresponsibly drunk.
Vang Vieng is not as recklessly raucous as it was, but neither is it a ghost town. Many bars and restaurants are having a hard time тАУ mainly the ones playing Friends and Family Guy on a loop and offering nigh-on identical menus of mediocre food тАУ but it's arguably due to oversupply. So many have opened in the last four years that any deviation from the clearly unsustainable tourism boom would have caused the same issues.
And not all bars are doing badly. Stephen Sampson, owner of the Aussie Bar, says his takings are up on last year. The closure of the bars on Saysong Island has meant people are coming into the town itself. The Rising Sun Irish pub further down the street is the only one regularly heaving, but others are turning a tidy trade.
There's also been a marked improvement in behaviour. тАЬYou'd see buggered people walking up the road, spewing - and they're not doing that any more,тАЭ says Sampson. тАЬPeople have stopped drinking all day.тАЭ
He also reckons there has been a shift in attitude. тАЬInstead of just getting wasted, people are going tubing one day, going kayaking the next, then trying rock-climbing, then hiring a motorbike for the day. And they say they're really enjoying themselves.тАЭ
Vang Vieng has not been totally tamed. You don't have to look too hard to find restaurants openly selling 'happy' pizza laced with marijuana, many tubers still have a can of beer in their hand as they float downstream and the occasional staggering drunk will roar тАЬAussie, Aussie, AussieтАЭ.
But there's a noticeable demographic shift. The mid-market hotels report that they're doing reasonably well and there are as many Koreans in kayaks as there are teenagers in tubes.
Vianney Catteau, managing director of adventure tour company Green Discovery, says: тАЬIt shouldn't be seen as the end of Vang Vieng. It's an opportunity to get back to what made it great.тАЭ
Irrespective of which bars are open, the extraordinary natural setting that made Vang Vieng attractive to travellers in the first place is still there. And, without the blurred vision, it's much better suited to caving than raving.
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Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/travel/holiday ... z2INJoA91l
Wombat : an Australian marsupial that eats,roots and leaves
Viang Vieng had some very nice countryside around, but I didn't hang around here due to all the young farang hanging around in bars drinking & watching cartoons on TV. The farang included lots of overweight young ladies in bikinis. Not a pleasant sight.
If that scene has quietened down, it may be worth staying for a couple of nights.
Some gay guides refer to the Babylon guesthouse in this town, but even as a budget traveller, I would look for something considerably better. Even backpackers may find this inadequate.
However, Luang Prabang is the town to visit in Laos.
I really enjoyed Luang Prabang when I was there a few years ago. I went in November. It was chilly at night and nice during the day. It really does depend on what you like to do. If you are interested in temples and just chilling out I think it is nice for that. I enjoyed Kuang Sii waterfall a lot and you can also ride up and down the Mekong.
There's also an incredible organization based in LP called Big Brother Mouse (www.bigbrothermouse.com) that publishes childrens' books in local Lao language(s) and gives them away to school kids all around the country. I think they still welcome English speaking volunteers to help out around their office. The authors and illustrators are Lao youth. The guy who started the whole thing is an ex-pat American.
I did not enjoy Vientianne much. There are a couple of things around town worth seeing but you can see them in a day. But there are lots of nice bakeries around town. The one good thing the French brought with them and left behind.
I hope to head back to the country some day and spend some time in the south. There are some old temples and other sites down there that look very interesting.
It is definitely slower paced. And you're not going to find a bunch of gogo bars. But that is part of the charm for me.
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