Vientiane II
Last night I met up with Marco and Rene from Chiang Kong, slow boat, and Luang Prabang. We ran into each other at the music festival on the river which turns out to be the first annual Mekong River Festival. I also met a teacher consulting here for the past few years. She had some interesting insights on the politics of the country.
One thing that really brought to my attention the nature of the government here was a story about a business owned by a Laos and a Westerner. There have been a lot of Chinese planting rubber trees in the north and that was becoming a significant problems for the local farmers. The Laos man then came to Vientiane to make a formal complaint. His wife was then seen in the city some six weeks later and someone asked her why she was here. She explained the story and said her husband was last seen being forced into a white van some weeks prior.
Later that night Marco and I went looking for a local bar. We finally found one after walking around a bit, but Marco was dressed like a slob and they wouldn’t let him in with his tank top. There were also another pair of westerners there trying in vain to get in, one with shorts and the other with flip flops, all no nos. We walked back to the guest house and I got back at 11:20, the door was locked. By law everything is supposed to close by 11:30pm and many of the guest houses lock their doors at midnight. So I waited around with a few others for a few minutes before the night person came down to let us in.
Today I rented a bicycle and went to see the last two sights on my list. First was Patuxai, a Laotian Arc de Triump, but much less impressive. It was built with concrete from the US that was supposed to have been used to build a new airport runway. I went up the four flights of stairs, finding what else, but t-shirts and tourist junk on the inside for sale. At the top there were some good views of the city.
I then went to Pha That Luang, a rebuilt old temple that is supposedly the most sacred in Laos. Here I found the usual photographers taking pictures of locals for a fee. For the first time though, I saw a man with a photo printer on top of his motorcycle, powered by an external car battery. No more waiting a few hours for the print shop.
I then went to ride around the city, but since I didn’t want to pay the ten cents for a map, I got totally lost. I stopped by a market with huge catfish being chopped up. It was clearly a locals market as I looked for and did not find any Beerlaos t-shirts for sale. I also only saw one westerner there and he wasn’t carrying a camera or backpack. Then I retraced my steps and made my way back to the Mekong for lunch and a siesta. Tonight Marco and I will try again to go to the bar/disco. And tomorrow will be another lazy day before my overnight bus ride to Pakse in southern Laos.
