The Plan B Adventure

VIP….Very Important Person, right? Maybe if you are a Laotian karaoke star!!! This is just what we found on the ride from Phonsavan to the Lao capital of Vientiane. What was billed as our ten-hour luxury VIP ride through the Laotian countryside turned out to be a hilarious yet death-defying ride (OH!!! You didn’t think it could get worse, did you?) through, what we felt was, every mountain range in Laos. The bus was very nice. Comfy, reclining seats with plenty of leg room. Sorry, we didn’t take any pictures (couldn’t release my grip from the seat cushion) so just close your eyes and imagine. Obviously, once you graduate from negotiating a public bus through the Lao mountains they move you up to a bigger, faster bus, which you are expected to drive faster through the same mountains. Apparently, the factor for our driver’s success must be full volume karaoke videos blaring through the entire bus because he moved us from Phonsavan to Vientiene in 7 hours rather than the expected 10 hour journey. What a talent!!…moving in and out of car with a giant bus while wrapping back and forth around the high mountains of Laos.

From what we had heard from fellow travellers about Vientiane it was nothing to look forward to. Big city, bustling with cars and people, that just hasn’t quite made it into the 21st century yet. Well, we were pleasantly surprised. Especially since the minute we stepped off our ride into the center of town we literally ran into our British travel buddy, Andrew whom readers will remember from our bus ride in Northern Thailand and our Mekong slow boat float. Yes…..he was on THAT boat too!! but he’s a river fanatic and we think he put up with the rigors a bit better than the two spolied Americans. Well, Andrew introduced us to what he’d been doing in Vientiane since we didn’t have any definitive plans so we thought we’d combine his highlights with some other stuff we had seen.

These sights included a walk to the Patuxai (Laos’ version of the Arc de Triumph), a stop by Si Saket (our favorite Wat yet and site of some spectacular photos), a sun-sheltered visit to the Lao History Museum (great job Lao government), a quick jaunt through Talat Sao (the gigantic morning market), a short interlude at the national temple of Tat Luang, and then the highlight of our trip (courtesy of Lonely Planet and our Spanish dining partner, Baba), the Buddha Park. As you can see from the pictures these are great national treasures and should be must-do’s for any visitor to Vientiane. Since Jeff is eliminating his extremely verbose nature in this email we thought we’d take the time to highlight just one….our favorite….the Buddha Park.

This park, otherwise known as Xieng Khuang, is located about 25-35km outside of Vientiane proper located on a great piece of property along the Mekong River. It was constructed in 1958 by a Lao sculptor and is his attempt to fuse Buddhist and Hindu cultures. The park and sculptures are fantasticly unique and provide a quirky look at many of the statues, gods and dieties that we have been veiwing over the past month. Check out this traveller’s site whom did a bit lengthier explanation if you are interested in the details.

Many guidebooks say you could bike it for exercise but trust us this is a horrible option, which includes multiple face-fulls of dust and exhaust, the ever-present possibility of getting run of the road by any number of vehicles, and obviously the heat which was reaching into the mid-90’s (F) with no relief from the humidity. We saw two Japanese girls on their way back and they did not look happy. Sorry girls…but we had to chuckle. We opted for the public bus, which you can all guess would be an adventure in itself. And it was…..a Great One!!

The #14 bus could possibly have the friendliest drivers, both out and back, we have encountered on our trip. On the way out, which took about an hour, we drove with a jam-packed bus (Bec on one side, Jeff on the other with a family of four sandwiched in-between) which was piloted by the Dancing Driver. As we made our way through a local festival parade he musicly tooted our horn and donated some of the bus fare to the locals that were celebrating. We think it was for a local temple but our Lao is pretty bad and the people on the bus just smiled when we tried to ask what was happening. When we reached the temple our driver happily jumped up and kindly ushered out to the Buddha Park. 

We really enjoyed the park which was littered with every Buddhist and Hindu diety you can imagine constructed in the sculptor’s unique eccentric way. The solitude and lack of tourists was also extremely welcoming and gave us the opportunity for some great photos and a relaxing discussion about what the heck this guy must have been thinking (or smoking)! His version of the universe is especially a mind-blower as he fashions it to look like a giant ball with windows all over and a leaf-less tree rising to the heavens. As you walk into the belly of the beast you get to witness the life level first, then ascend to heaven or descend to hell. Quite interesting, especially since we each took a seperate way, Becca heading straight to the top, while can you guess which way Jeff decided to explore first!!

So as we said the driver on the way back was just as funny. Picking up groceries and drinks from locals on the way into town as well as stopping for ten minutes to rabble-rouse the local Happy Hour gang where we picked up the highlights to the journey. They were Alex, Sai, and Diana. All native Lao, Alex now lives in France, his wife in Laos, and their sister is Kansas City. Quite a hilarious bus ride for the next 30 minutes getting to know them all and hearing about their enjoyment of Johnny Walker since 3pm in the afternoon. It was great fun and we can’t wait for our next public bus!

Well, it’s off to Siem Reap and the Kingdom of Cambodia. We can’t wait to share our stories and pictures of the fabulous Angkor temples and Jeff’s upcoming bout with Stomach Virus II, the revenge of Laotian food!!

Tags: Laos, Travel, Vientiane

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 1st, 2006 at 1:47 am and is filed under Travel. 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.