Vientiane: Food, Glorious Food
January 28th, 2006We caught an early morning bus from Vang Vieng to Vientiane, arriving in that city around lunch time, and found ourselves a guesthouse. It was a little out of the centre of Vientiane, but Bec and I sometimes refer to stay away from the backpacker hangouts, where guesthouses inevitably cluster together like campers around a fire. Staying away from the centre of town enables us to walk in to the main sites, seeing parts of the city you otherwise may not.
The guesthouse itself was set down a small dirt road, off a major paved road. Our tuk-tuk dirver led us down this path for 30 or 40 metres, past open-fronted wooden houses sitting up on stilts with small kids waving in the dirt as we smiled and waved back, before dropping us at an oasis amongst the dust. A two-storey building, with a huge 1st floor verandah overlooking a lush garden out the back with a small bar, palm trees and a couple of picnic tables. Bec ran in to check out the rooms while I waited with the tuk-tuk driver.
She soon came trotting back, “Well, I haven’t seen the room, but Da, the owner has already made us some complementary drinks, they’re waiting for us on the bar, so I reckon we’d better stay.”
Worked for me.
Dave