Vang Vieng is an interesting tourism destination in Laos that has undergone several iterations of re-inventing itself.



When I first visited for an overnight stopover it was a sleepy little town with maybe a handful of backpackers going tubing (more on that later).
I also remember the deserted airport runway from the 'secret war' going through the sleepy little village (Lima site 6) and the stunning mountain scenery in the background. Other than that there wasn't much there.



Ten years later my mum and dad visited the place and told me stories how the place had transformed. It had grown and was full of drunk backpackers with loud rave music and parties throughout the night. During the day they were floating down the river in car tubes again with beers and drinks in their hands.



Then again about 5 years ago, Laos appeared in the Australian news media with stories of young backpackers breaking their necks doing somersaults off the tree branches on the river and lagoons and hitting the rocks. Stories of high highly available drugs were also emerged.

The Lao government stepped in and closed the majority of the bars along the river, stopped the parties and the drugs and implemented a number of other safety restrictions.
It worked, the parties stopped and the young party seeking backpackers fled.

A new crowd has now moved in - this is bus loads of adrenaline seeking Koreans. They go there to go kayaking, zip lining, tubing, buggy riding etc. They eat at the Korean restaurants and stay at the same hotels, but otherwise mostly keep to themselves. This also means that some of the same old sleepy feeling has returned to this town. It also meant that is was easy (or just plain luck from our side) to avoid the tourists.

The airstrip is still there, but I recon most visitors would walk across it and not notice and definitely wouldn't know the history behind the secret war in Laos, let alone the American involvement and the little airstrips around the place. It is a fascinating story and has very much shaped Laos into what it is today.



The area is just absolutely stunning with steep limestone cliffs and rice paddies. I could easily have spent more time there taking photos in the surrounding area.

A must see in Vientiane is Pha That Luang - It is on every bank note in Laos and they are very proud of it.



Unlike Buddha Park it is surprisingly quiet when it comes to tourists. The majority of people visiting seems to be either Laos or Thai people offering a prayer. The correct way here is to get the insense and flowers and then walk clockwise around the Stuba on the inside of the covered corridor (mostly to keep out of the sun I assume).





Although it is not particularly old (The original 1st century structure was mostly destroyed and has undergone a number of more recent restorations), it is stunningly beautiful and impressive in size.



For me to get some of the panorama photos here with the selection of lenses I'd brought along I had to take multiple photos that I then had to stitch together.

Outside there is a temple that is equally interesting, although nothing compared to further north in Luang Prabang.





There are also street vendors selling cage birds that are supposed to bring good luck and prayers to anyone releasing them.

One of the sights we wanted to visit was Buddha Park outside Vientiane (close to the border crossing back into Thailand).





Trying to figure out the most comfortable way to get there we settled on taking the local bus. There aren't any taxis as such in Vientiane and we weren't keen taking a tuk-tuk for 30 kilometers. Most of the tuk-tuks are in an extremely poor shape with failing brakes, wobbling wheels and thick smoke coming out of the exhaust pipes.
They are perfectly fine for shorter trips inside the city (such as hotel to bus station), but not recommended for longer trips.

The bus turned out to be easy to find and we were early enough to all get a seat. The bus was later packed with passengers going to Thailand and it would have been tough to stand up for the one hour bus ride.

The bus is also really convenient in that it stops right outside Buddha Park which is the last stop before the bus turns around and heads back to Vientiane.









Buddha Park itself was apparently established by a Monk building the statues for religious purposes as education of his religious beliefs.



It is actually a nice little area and quite interesting with lots of (to us) weird statues showing bizarre things.



The most obvious is the massive 'pumpkin' at the entrance that you can climb. Each level inside the the sculpture itself represents hell, earth and sky.



The entrance is a head with a clock above it - meaning swallowed up by time?





There is also a massive reclining buddha.



And my favourite was the large centre sculpture carrying the body of a woman...no idea what this is supposed to represent.