Lance Armstrong and the Wicked Witch take on Vientiane
We arrived in Vientiene after taking a 14 hour overnight bus from Bangkok across the Laotian border. The bus was surprisingly comfortable with a good amount of leg room, sufficiently reclining seats, air-conditionaling set at just the right temp, and included a showing of Face Off for our viewing pleasure. Thinking that it would be better to be a bit further away from the from front of the bus (where the TV was) in case the TV volume was too high and to avoid being in the back where we couldn’t see the TV, I chose a set of seats right in the middle of the bus by the stairs leading to the exit door (the passenger seats were on the second level of the bus). What I failed to notice was that the bathroom was situated right at the foot of the stairs….BIG MISTAKE (Refer to posting Think Before You Do: Things we learned the hard way). We crossed the Laotian border at sunrise, after our visas were “taken care of” by our bus operators (i.e. I charge you this amount of money and in return I will give you a visa application to fill out, carry your passport to the visa border, give it to the immigration officer behind the desk and then give it back to you. In the process, I will charge more than the visa would have cost you if you got it on your own and take some off the top). Finally, we arrived in Vientiane late AM.
For more on our time in Vientiane
Vientiane, the capital of Laos is an incredible slow and sleepy city right along the Mekong river. It feels more like a small river town than what you would expect for a capital city and it was fairly quiet as the noise level never rose about the sound of a few motor bikes rev’ing up at once. We spent the rest of the first day sleeping off jetlag and then treated ourselves to a nice dinner of some rustic, cozy French fare. The rest of the night was spent strolling around town, checking some local bars in an effort to get an idea of the nightlife there. A hoppin’ nightlife we did not find, but what we did find was that we got a lot of stares from the locals. We have a couple theories about the staring:
1. Rarity in oriental Asians: We didn’t seem many oriental Asians around (Chinese, Japanes, Koreans, etc.) and it seemed as though people couldn’t figure out what I was. On a rare occasion would someone directly ask me what ethnicity I was, but more often would I get an curious stare.
2. Competition: The most blatant staring that we received were from the local females that were out for a night on the town (like the vicious stared used by the chicks in ‘Mean Girls’ or ‘Heathers’). It seems fairly common in some regions of Southeast Asia for relationships to develop between local females and visiting foreign males. Given this, our theory here was that it may have been a case of the “Dude, what the heck is this frumpy-looking, unprimped, Asian chick with glasses doing with this big, white guy? She’s clearly not one of us, but we can’t quite figure out what the heck she is AND dude, this is our turf and big, white guys are our property — rrrwawwwww (cat hiss).”
In any event, we turned in for the night to rest up for seeing all the sights around the city the next day.
For those of you who don’t know – I have a illogical fear of riding bikes that somehow came to be in my adult life. Yes, I rode a bike often as a child (like most children who depended on their bike as a primary mode of transport) and loved the darn thing. Yes, I have also owned multiple bikes since college and have ridden them – but only because I forced myself to do so to prove that this crazy cyclophobia wouldn’t get the best of me. What is it that I’m scared of? Well, its a few things – not being able to stop in time, not being able to turn in time, and more importantly being thrown from the darn thing when I least expect it. More importantly, I’ve never been as into sports that require some complex piece of equipment to be between you and the ground to propel you somehow (i.e. bikes, skateboards, scooters, pogo sticks, etc.) My experience has taught me that if you add a piece of complicated equipment between me and the ground, the picture is not one that contains grace, ease, and poise – characteristics for those of you who know me well, know that I am very good at maintaining anyway – HA!
Anyway, despite the cyclophobia, Anthony and I took Vientiene by bikes that we rented for $1/each complete with a little cargo basket and bell. We visited pretty much every sight listed in Lonely Planet, but had a few favorites:
The house of the former president, Kaysone Phomvihane: Kaysone Phomivihane is considered the founding father of the country. He passed away in 1992 and since then his residence and workplace has been preserved as he left it in remembrance. Based on the reaction of the guards at our arrival (confusion as to why two tourists would show up at the gate) and our guide’s meticulous tour, we were pretty sure that we may have been the only visitors in the last fwe days. Our guide was a really sweet and reserved Laotian woman who personally escorted us around the residence, making reference to certain items and rooms with the limited English that she had. The house was a very modest 1 story building made up of a few main rooms and the important items that were brought to our attention by the guide included his library stocked full of books about communism and socialism, a half finished bottled of whisky, his yoga mat and a pair of his old tennis shoes and flip flops. In short, the experience was a little bizarre but really interesting and indicative of just how respected and revered this man was.
Wat Sok Pa Long: This forest temple has an outdoor sauna and an open-air lodge where you can get massages. This place was like an oasis and we spent a good 3 hours there decompressing after our long day of being biking tourists. The place was full of locals and tourists and the service was excellent and extremely friendly. The owner was a Laotian woman in her mid-20’s who inherited the lodge from her uncle and had made some changes of her own since to improve the business as according to her, it had lost it charm over time. She put a little money into cleaning the place up, buying new towels and sheets and other little odds and ends, hired a complete set of new staff who were friendly and hard-working, and imposed a set of rules that set a standard for the level of service that they would provide. Some simple actions that made a huge difference in improving her business – goes to show that you dont’ have to go to school to learn the basics of good business – some things are innate or can be figured out with common sense.
Check out some more of our pics from Vientiane and Vangvieng on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/shanlovesphotos/sets/72057594055488354/
– Shan
Tags: Laos, Laos, SE Asia, Travel
Shan