I love visiting markets in different countries: where there are almost no tourists and local people come to buy food and things, you can get a real feel for the spirit of a country — not the tourist version, but the place as it actually is. So I couldn’t possibly stay in Vang Vieng without tracking down its big market.
In short, as of October 2026. The market is in the same spot as when we visited in 2014: it is the Morning Market, roughly 2 km north of the centre as the crow flies, a couple of hundred metres from the North Bus Terminal (Vang Vieng North Bus Terminal). From the railway station it is about 1.6 km. Come early in the morning: according to reviews, the liveliest time is before 09:00, and by the afternoon the rows empty out (we happened to arrive in the afternoon, as you can see in the photos below). Payment is in kip — cash is easiest, in small notes; on 6 October 2026 the Bank of Laos was giving 22,375 kip to the dollar. The photos and impressions below are from 2014.
I had already been to markets in Cambodia, Thailand and Vientiane, and now it was the turn of the Vang Vieng market. Vang Vieng comes across as a thoroughly touristy town. But that is only how it seems at first glance: back in 2014 buses from Vientiane dropped passengers just beyond the tourist streets, and you got the impression that those two tourist streets were Vang Vieng. These days many travellers arrive by train from Vientiane, and the station stands 3 km north of the centre — on the map the market lies roughly halfway between them. In fact Vang Vieng is not only touristy. Walk a mere 500 metres past the last guesthouse on the street and ordinary Vang Vieng begins: there are no tourists, local people live here, and there is no clutch of cafés with English menus. And it is there, a little further on, that the market is to be found.
The exact location of the market in Vang Vieng:
You can get there by bicycle — rental bikes are very easy to find in Vang Vieng, with hire shops practically on every corner; according to Wikivoyage, as of November 2025 a day’s hire cost about 60,000 kip and a full 24 hours 80,000. We walked, just as we had to the Tham Chang cave: from the centre to the market is about 2 km.
This is what the entrance to the market looks like:
We arrived in the second half of the day and there was practically nobody there — just the sellers and maybe a couple of shoppers in the whole market.
First comes the household-goods part of the market, then the clothing rows, and at the far end the food stalls.
There was absolutely everything here, like in a big supermarket. Given that back then we hadn’t come across any genuinely large supermarkets anywhere in Laos, this market was the only way to buy everything in one place. Vang Vieng now has mini-marts: several are marked on OpenStreetMap, including a 7-Eleven.
Not a soul around:
The clothing rows:
Stationery:
A whole heap of Vietnamese hats:
All sorts of bits and pieces:
More hats:
Everything handmade:
Woven baskets in every possible shape:
And here are the food rows — not very clean, let’s be honest, but not like Cambodia either:
Fruit is what there’s most of here:
A happy Lao girl:
A choice to rival Thailand, durians included:
You can apparently get something to eat here too, as is usual at Asian markets — we just came at the wrong time:
Bags, bags, bags…
Rubber wellington boots, the plain old-fashioned kind:
And this is what we stumbled across at the market in Vang Vieng, in faraway Laos:
How on earth did it end up there??
Dried mushrooms:
Vegetables — and pineapple which, as usual, is sold both with the vegetables and with the fruit:
When it comes to greens, though, everything is excellent here — a huge selection, and all for pennies:
There seem to be plenty of vegetables, yet nothing you actually want to buy — onions and cucumbers:
The market also had meat and fish rows, but I didn’t go in — it was really rather dirty, and the smell was not the most pleasant.
So we headed back along the other side — children’s toys heaped up in a pile:
More clothes:
Incidentally, there were no prices anywhere — unlike in Thailand, for example — so you had to haggle the whole time:
Interestingly, in Laos it is customary for women to wear very bright, shiny skirts with an ornamental pattern along the hem. How they walk around in such heat in these thick skirts is quite beyond me. And not only adults — children too; here is a whole stand of Lao outfits for children:
And that, I think, is about it — by the exit the market is still deserted:
All in all, if you are staying in Vang Vieng for a long time, or if you are used to living on fruit alone, this market is well worth walking or cycling to. But in the afternoon, as we discovered, there is not much to do there — it is all somehow empty: it is not called the Morning Market for nothing, and you will only catch all the hustle and bustle early in the morning. Incidentally, in 2014 you could also buy fruit on the tourist street (head up the street with the Luang Prabang Bakery café — it is still open — to the main highway and walk a little way towards Vientiane), but the choice there was smaller and the quality somehow poorer, and in the end we never dared buy anything. If you fancy a market in the evening and closer to the guesthouses, the Champa Night Market now runs in the centre, not far from the tourist information centre: it opens in the early evening and packs up early as well.
