Vieng Xai Caves Visitor Centre — Attraction in Houaphanh

What an amazing experience it was to be able to attend this tour. My guide was Bun, and he was very informative and attentive, answering all of my questions in his great English. I was the only person on the tour. We started at 9 am and finished with some tea, pomelo fruit, and sticky rice before 1 o'clock. It was such a privilege to visit the caves where important Lao people lived and ruled, and struggled and pushed through! 💪

It was great to get this knowledge and stories from the local, Bun shared some personal stories about his parents and friends, and stories that only locals know.

If you are interested in Lao history, you should most definitely make an effort to go to Viang Xai. If you are not coming from or going to Vietnam, you can go there from Vang Vieng or Luang Prabang, making a stopover in Phonsavan where you can visit the Plain of Jars archeological sites, the spoon village, UXO Information Center and Provincial museum :) then continue to Viang Xai. It is a long way, but definitely worth it.

The town of Viang Xai itself is very lovely (and quiet) and if you have time, you can spend a few days there. There is a viewpoint to climb to, a local market, Sakura Park, some monuments, and more caves in the area. Saw some signs for the waterfall, but didn't have time to check it...

Excellent experience. We did the audio tour because the tour guides were too busy to take us on the tour. I do not know why they were so busy (or at least they must have been busy outside Vieng Xai) but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

The audio tour is excellent and allows you to see and hear about all the sites in the area. If you take one of the guided tours you are limited to 2 hours so must pick and choose. It took us close to 4 hours without bikes to visit all the sites.

The male translator for recordings of accounts from Lao people during the war was terribly blocked up at the time of recording. The poor guy really struggles at site #14. Likely just a cold but I hope he is...

One of the best (audio) guided tours I haven been at. So much history and wonderful people explaining all of it you with an incredibly authentic voice. Everything was very well maintained and you get a very real idea of how life must have been. Our guide Bounpanh was extremely helpful, explaining more on details inside the caves, and showing us original footage on his phone. It's a shame not more tourists come here, to the actual birth place of Laos like it is today - this should be the starting point of every Laos visit in order to understand more about its people, culture and heritage. Entrance fee of 70k (as of Dec 2023) is absolutely...