page_title: Vang Vieng
section_title: Tourism
hierarchical_section_title: Vang Vieng / Tourism
context_page_description: Vang Vieng is a tourist-oriented town in Laos in Vientiane Province about four hours bus ride north of the capital. The town lies on the Nam Song River. The most notable feature of the area is the karst topography surrounding the town.
context_section_description: Vang Vieng has become a backpacker-oriented town, with the main street featuring guest houses, bars, restaurants, internet cafes, and tour agencies Attractions of the town include inner tubing and kayaking on the Nam Song River, which, until 2012, was lined with bars selling Beer Lao and Lao-Lao, and equipped with rope swings, zip lines, swimming and diving into blue lagoon, and large decks for socializing.
  Vang Vieng locals have organised themselves into a cooperative business association to sell tubing as an activity, in a system in which 1,555 participating households are divided into 10 village units, with each unit taking its turn on a ten-day rotation to rent inner-tubes to the tourists.
  Thanongsi Sorangkoun, owner of an organic farm in Vang Vieng, says that tubing inadvertently began in 1999 when he bought a few rubber tubes for his farm volunteers to relax on along the river.
  During the wet season, the river can be a series of rapids.
  Other activities include trekking and rock climbing in the limestone mountains. There are also numerous caves, such as Tham Phu Kham half an hour north of Vang Vieng by tuk-tuk or the Tham Non and Tham Jang caves closer to Vang Vieng.
  A market five kilometres north of town sells Lao textiles, household items, and foodstuffs. The town is on the main north–south highway, Route 13 from Luang Prabang to the capital, Vientiane. It is about eight hours by bus to Luang Prabang and four hours to Vientiane (152 km).
  Just a short walk from town are many ethnic Lao, Kmou, and Hmong villages, while Vang Vieng Organic Farm is around 4 km north of the town in the village of Phoudindaeng. There are opportunities for community involvement such as teaching, while it is also possible to stay in a house made of mud bricks at the organic farm.
  Wat Done Hor is the oldest of the five temples in Vang Vieng, built in 1903.
caption: Landscape, Vang Vieng
exif: {"Image DocumentName": "", "Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "", "Image Model": "", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "100", "Image YResolution": "100", "Image PageName": "", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2004:11:28 08:51:19", "Image Artist": "", "Image HostComputer": "", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 255, 128, 255, 128, 255]", "Image Copyright": "", "Image ExifOffset": "336", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSSatellites": "", "GPS GPSMapDatum": "", "Image GPSInfo": "536", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "674", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4347", "EXIF SpectralSensitivity": "", "EXIF OECF": "0", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0200", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF SubSecTime": "", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "392", "EXIF SpatialFrequencyResponse": "0", "EXIF FileSource": "0", "EXIF SceneType": "0", "EXIF CVAPattern": "0"}