Rock climbing in Vang Vieng / Laos °

‍Laos Climbing News
Climbing is a fairly new activity in Laos. So far, the only officially opened areas for climbing are in Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang.With the spectacular limestone landscape in Vang Vieng, north of Vientiane, climbers can access the crags free of charge. 1 to 3 day courses and equiment rental are available at Adam's Rock climbing school in Vang Vieng. In Luang Prabang, this activity is also available on Gecko Wall.Check them out!

Climbing on "No fears my Dear" 6C+ / Tuber's Paradise Wall
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Rock climbing Vang Vieng
The town of Vang Vieng is located approximately 165 km north of Vientian, in the idyllic Nam Song valley. Bizarre bock formations and caves abound in this karst landscape. Vang Vieng offers opportunities for, trekkers, bikers, rafters and rock climbers and together with its cheap guest houses it has become an eldorado for backpackers. A 'rock climbing eldorado' is perhaps exaggerating; there are only three sectors with 10 to 20 routes respectively. Sleeping Wall and Secret Canyon (5b to 7c) the most popular crag, Phatan (5c bis 8a+) one of the best crags in Vang Vieng with hard routes and Pho Doeng MT (6a bis 7a+) set in a beautiful landscape with moderate difficulty routes. Don't miss the Chill-Out Bar at the river it enjoys an amazing view of the mountains. Vang Vieng along with its Bamboo huts and street restaurants offers everything one requires while remaining small and cosy. As ever, chance can play a big role in life and I wouldn't have stayed for so long if I hadn't had meet such interesting people during my visit. VV is small enough so that it's easy to get to know people. Life in Laos is much slower than in Thailand and more relaxing. The climbing in VV is just starting but has a huge potential, for many climbers the new route potential here is the main attraction. VV is for many a stopping off point before going on to Halong Bay in Vietnam or Yangsho in China. I travelled to VV from Chang Mai in northern Thailand (by the way, Crazy Horse is an amazing climbing area near Chang Mai) via Chang Khong and from there by boot to the tourist town of Luang Prapang, a fairy-tale journey.

Get in; Vang Vieng is between Vientiane and Luang Prabang - by bus (road and bus conditions permitting) about 6-8 hours from Luang Prabang, around 3-4 hours from Vientiane. Buses to Vientiane leave bright and early between 05:00 and 07:00 and cost a fixed 25,000 kip; you can also try to share a tuk-tuk for slightly more. Less crowded and more humanely timed tourist buses leave at 10:00 and 13:30 (in theory - they tend to wait until full before departing) and cost US$4. A minibus leaves at 09:00 and costs US$5. Tickets can be bought in almost every guesthouse (for a US$1 commission).


Get around; Touts offer cyclo or taxi rides from the bus station into town, but it's only a 5 minutes walk to the center, and about a 2 minute walk out the other side. Your only other transportation option is on one of the day or overnight trips down the river by inner tube or kayak. Packages from one of the tourist shops include a van ride back to town. On the smaller scale, locals will rent you an inner tube and pick you up on their motorbike.


Do; Blue Lagoon: Is 8km trip away from town that brings you to a spring feed lagoon at the bottom of "Golden Cave". Nice place to relax, swim and play on the rope swing. The waters are inhabitated with a few hundred carp fish that will eat locally sold fish food right out of your hand. The cave above requires a modest hike up a make shift bamboo ladder. Once inside, there is a short walk to the Sleeping Golden Buhdda. Entry fees are about: 10,000kip per/person. Lao-style steam sauna Movies shown at a few restaurants Tubing down the river. US$3.50 includes ride to start point. Dry bag US$1. Some dry bags may not be of the best quality, often digital cameras get ruined by faulty dry bags rented to tourists, so beware and if in doubt, don't bring your camera. Many beer and other pitstops along the way. Also, try the diving stop. Kayaking the river. Playing on the swing over the river. Please be careful - perforated eardrums and permanent hearing damage are common injuries resulting from falling the wrong way. The local hospital is not equipped to diagnose or treat this injury - Vientiane has the closest (if spartan) ENT facility but no English speaking specialists, so you may have to head all the way to Bangkok for treatment. 3km north of Vang Vieng, where the main tubing run commences, there's an organic farm. Here you can escape the town's dirge, teach knowledge to village kids, build adobe buildings, learn/teach farming, eat some good quality food and stay a night, a week, a year... Internet. The local internet cartel charges $US2 an hour for internet, however, the bandwidth is very good for Laos and they encourage customers to use it! (meaning downloading mp3's and the such). Rock climbing. There is exellent walls to everyone from first timers to pro's. The day trips (includes guide, all gear, lunch, transport etc.) starts from 20USD.

Weights
I found a full rack of dumbbell free-weights which go up to 60lbs. There are also some lightweight bars and a coupe of adjustable barbells. You’ll find plenty of floor space in which to use themtoo  – that’s what the Movement Playground does well – space!

The other mainstream piece of weight training equipment was a squat rack.