Nick’s world tour

Looking for a bit of adventure, it was time to go for the public transport. Crammed in, 3 to a seat, it was good to feel like you were back in real Asia again! Vientiane is the capital of Laos, but with a population of just over 200,000 it’s pretty quiet. Although there are some nice old French buildings particularly by the river, most of the town is unattractive.

Many of the roads are still mud tracks (an article in the Vientiane times applauds the fact that another road is going to be tarmacced soon!)

There’s also very little of interest to do here, and as it’s a Sunday evening, nothing seems to be open. The only reason I need to spend any time here is to get my visa for Vietnam, which annoyingly seems to take a few days unless you pay a big premium. I opt to pay for two days, which is a lot to pay, but that’s about as much as I can take here. Most of us are heading our separate ways now, so there’s no-one around either.

There’s a couple of temples: Si Saket is impressive, mainly because it is crumbling, and still retains some charm and character. Many temples seem to be over preserved and too modern looking, says the expert on architecture.

Pha That Luang is less so, but as the huge golden stupa is featured on the bank notes and it is tourist attraction 2 out of 3, it’s worth seeing.

The third and final attraction is the local copy of the Arc de Triomphe. Now having never been to Paris, I believe that the original was not constructed from concrete given by the USA to build a new runway! The sign on it even says it is not yet finished, and that close up it resembles a concrete monster!

There were two saving graces. The first is a legacy of the French empire. They made two contribution to Lao: first was adding the silent “s”; second is the French bakeries and cafes which was obviously the most important. (History buffs may beg to differ that they made more contributions…!?)

The second saving grace is the food stall area along the Mekong where you can get a barbequed chicken for about 50pence. Bargain.

Having slated their capital city, I’m not quite ready to leave for Vietnam yet. Tonight I’m heading down to Si Phan Don (the 4000 Islands, not to be mistaken for salad dressing with a similar name). Although I misread the map and guidebook, and have booked a boat to the wrong one… I shall try to rectify this later!!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 11th, 2006 at 11:25 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.