Viengxay Today
In peaceful Viengxay today, it is difficult to imagine people living in caves for nine years under daily bombing. Now, Viengxay is a lovely small town in a beautiful landscape, where life carries on at a slow, relaxed pace.
You can easily walk around Viengxay, or hire a bicycle from the Viengxay Caves Visitor Centre. As well as visiting the historic caves on a tour from the Visitor Centre, why not stay in Viengxay for a few days and explore this area of stunning beauty.
Every day you spend in Viengxay directly supports the local economy and enables local people to develop their community for the future.
Simple accommodation at a family-owned guesthouse comes with a friendly local welcome. You can sit beside the lake with a cool drink and watch daily life passing by until sunset. Another day, you can explore the nearby villages and countryside by bicycle or motorbike. You can rent motorbikes in Xamneua, just one hour from Viengxay, and explore Houaphanh Province with Viengxay as your base.
Visit the Caves with a Local Guide
In order to conserve the historic caves and ensure visitor safety, visits to the caves can only be made on a tour with a trained local guide from the Viengxay Caves Visitor Centre.
The price that you pay for your tour funds guide training, research and conservation of the caves and the artefacts. This ensures that the local young people with a passion for their area’s history can stay and work in their hometown and gain professional skills.
The new audio tour, the first in Laos, is part of your guided tour. You will hear the story of Viengxay through the words of people who lived there during the war.
Viengxay Caves Visitor Centre
The Viengxay Caves Visitor Centre is the tourist information centre for the town and the area. It is 15 minutes walk from Viengxay market, where bus services arrive. A signboard there gives you directions to the Visitor Centre.
Open: Every day from 8.30am - 12pm, 1.30pm - 4pm
Tours: Twice every day in English and Lao
English tour times: 9am and 1pm (note afternoon tour time)
Lao tour times: 9am and 1.30pm
(Groups can take a tour at other times for a small extra fee)
Tel: 064 314321
Email: info@visit-viengxay.com
Tourist Information
Tourist information including transport and accommodation is posted on a noticeboard outside the Visitor Centre, so you can find out information even when it is closed. During opening hours the guides can tell you more about accommodation, services and facilities in the town and the area.
Exhibition and Caves Tours
At the Visitor Centre you can discover the real background to the conflict and see historic photos. Some of the wartime caves are open to visitors on a tour with trained local guides. The new audio tour is part of your guided tour.
Exploring around Viengxay
The staff at the Viengxay Caves Visitor Centre can tell you about paths and tracks that you can cycle and walk on circular routes around Viengxay. Look out for the information plinths in the town area that tell you more about the caves hidden near the roads.
Walking or cycling past Kaysone Phomvihane’s cave will take you beside the foot of several ranges of limestone peaks. Most of them contain caves used by the local population and the central organisation during the war. This area is also farmed by Viengxay villagers, and early in the morning and at dusk you will meet farmers going to and from their fields of sweetcorn and vegetables.
Please explore safely everywhere in Laos - keep to the paths and tracks that people have already made.
Further from Viengxay, to the south you can visit Xieng Xeu village, the first site of the revolutionary headquarters. From Xieng Luang village, east of Viengxay on the road to Vietnam, you can see the entrance to the large hospital caves up on the hillside, and the hospital buildings constructed outside after the 1973 ceasefire, now used as a school.
