Vientiane: Country town Capital.
Laos is not a huge country, about 6 million people, but still you think the capital would be more than a few roads and some big banks. It does kind of seem like a small country town and the capital must be somewhere else…but no this is it. Not that its bad, its just quiet. Laos had not yet reached the tourist status of Thailand or even Cambodia but are clearly rushing forward into the 21st century with building going on everywhere. They’re even paving the footpaths here in Vientiane and the town now has a ATM that takes international cards, the only one in the country that often (as we found) runs out of money, due to all the tourists in the country trying to get out money for the whole trip. Unfortunate that the maximum you can get out is the equvilent to $70. Strange thing with their currency is that it is so incredibly worthless that the highest value note is equal to $5. However Laos is great! And its general uselessness makes it all the more interesting. Laos is different from other south east asian countries in that it is so incredibly relaxed, the lonely planet even says that Lao people feel sorry for “those who think too much”.
Everything is at a slow pace and the people just don’t really care if you stay at their guest house, buy their stuff or take their tuk-tuk. A nice change from the intensity of Vietnam. We even had a tuk-tuk driver tell us to walk because it was close, and we actually had to convince him to drive us. (anyone who’s traveled in asia knows that this would never happen in any other country). It’s a cool place to travel though, the people are all really friendly and theres lots to see. We only had a week but still got to see a couple of the main places.
As Vietiane isn’t the countries biggest drawcard we only stayed a night, spent the afternoon wandering aimlessly and trying to change money. Great to have warm weather again after freezing cold Hanoi. Did manage to go out and see Laos’ famous golden monument and also some important looking temples. Which is pretty good for me and Tash as we normally avoid anything ‘important’. We had drinks on the banks of the Mighty Mekong river, not looking so mighty in dry season and checked out the market before bed in our cell like room. In the morning we were heading off north to VangVieng so we set off early to the bus station and stopped for breakfast on the way. The not so good side about the whole relaxed thing is the service in restaurant and we ended up ordering baguettes 3 times from the same person and getting them 45 minutes later minus our drinks which they forgot. We made it to the bus on time, a cheap local bus that was more like a big metal shell with wheels. We made it through to our destination OK after learing that Lao’s will eat anything, including fried cockroaches on sticks that a kid was trying to sell….mmmm roasted roaches. So Vang Vieng is about touristy as you can get in Laos, good for a couple of days of eating Pizza and watching TV.
Tags: Laos, Travel
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