The Young Man Odyssey

I spent the day touring Buddha Park, built by a group of young, unskilled sculptors under the watchful eye of a master craftsman. If they were truly unskilled, you cannot tell, and it was a wonderful break from the fast pace of the city. It is built on land just above the Mekong River, complete with a little restaurant on the water where I had my lunch. Two monks that were on the bus with me wandered in at no charge and began reading stories to the local Lao kids under the giant sculptures.

I have spent 3 days in Vientiane not by choice, but by circumstance of my visa being processed. However, it is a wonderful capital city full of grit and character. It is not as beautiful as Luang Prabang, with it’s brick streets and French architecture, but the pace of the city continues on with or without tourists, and that is not the same for the other cities I’ve visited, whether be Thailand or Laos.

I am now the proud owner of sparkling-new Vietnam visa that ran me… 65 dollars with one day processing! To try and avert further over-expenditures I am taking bus and train to Hanoi rather than fly, (I’m also dreadfully afraid of small planes.)

But alas, this is to be my last night in Vientiane, which has boasted the cheapest internet I’ve used at .6 cents a minute. Tomorrow I shall be in Phonsovan, whose biggest tourist attraction is the plain of jars. The plain of jars are literally fields of ceramic and concrete jars scattered in fields that may or may not still be contaminated with landmines.

To Vietnam by Monday, and for you pleasure… two monks walking down the street:

This entry was posted on Friday, December 1st, 2006 at 9:54 am and is filed under Thailand, Laos, Vietnam 2006. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.