Exploring Vang Vieng and Vientaine as we travel south in Laos

Well the 5 hour minivan journey to Vang Vieng turned into a 7 hour drive. This was primarily due to the broken roads, which include extreme pot holes – causing a really bumpy ride (km after km.

After a day recovering from the journey we did our normal approach of visiting the temples and orientating ourselves with the town layout. This included crossing some bridges that may be in need of some repairs, but this didn’t deter Alan and he sent Helena across first to check it out.

As this town is know for its adventure sports, including buggy riding, micro-light flights and what we decided to do something which we have never done before – a balloon ride. We did have a bit of a false start with one company, but then 2 spaces became free with the company (Above Laos) Alan originally wanted to fly with.

The day was supposed to start early with a 6.00 am pick-up service, but we had a WhatsApp message at that time cancelling the ride – followed by another one 30 minutes later to say ‘weather has cleared and’.so we were back on. We arrived at the launch site with no balloon in sight, although the location was in ‘dry’ paddy fields in the valley of Nathong, on the far side of the Nam Song river.

After the 5 minute safety briefing the truck arrived (with the basket and balloon onboard) and within 15 minutes the balloon was inflated. Then it was all go, and the eight passenger scrambled into the basket and we were off Shortly we had risen high into the sky, upto to 2,500 feet, with the township of Vang Vieng lying at our feet. We began to drift slowly over the river and villages (see external link), out towards the famous karst mountains, shrouded in the early morning mist. After 40 minutes of flying (see external links https://www.youtube.com/shorts/cnxx9F0GiWo and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0gcLs_GRdM) we landed in anther paddy field, that thankfully was dry – which was a great thrill to the local kids who ran over and played in the basket as the crew deflated the balloon. Of course, we had to then head back to their base to have brekkie, a glass of champagne and then pay for the fun.

After 5 days in Vang Viene we took a minivan and travelled 115 kms to Vientaine on the Laos/China Highway (no pot holes this time). During our 30 hour stopover we went to the Patuxai arch, Revolution monument, Wat That Luang Tai and (the most famous image) That Luang Stupa.

Our brief visit to Vietiane is now over and we will board the sleeper bus to take us on the 500 km journey to Paske, before we arrive in Don Det (aka Four Thousand Islands) – which will be our ‘home’ for the next 7 days.