Vientiane – Laos
You won’t believe how BLUE the sky is here! The weather is so wonderful, nice and warm and only too hot around lunch time. There isn’t much pollution here because there is virtually no industry! Vientiane comes as quite a surprise in being a Capital City. There are few hi-rise buildings; most are only about 4 stories high. And, the people are very laid back. Even the lao locals say that that lao people don’t like to work very much! And, if they do, then they take time off, to take a break.
When I arrived in Vientiane, my taxi driver attempted to show me several guesthouses, but most were outside my budget. Finally, I just told him to let me off near the Mekong River and I thought I would just walk from guesthouse to guesthouse. However, that is difficult when carrying a large pack on your back and a dayback in your arms – and besides, it was getting hot already, even though it was only 10:00am.
I thought I found a great deal at only USD 6.00 – the room was large, had a big fan and also a window – good circulation, and the bathroom looked okay. Oops, I didn’t look closely enough. That evening I discovered just how dirty my room really was. To be on the safe side, I slept in my own sleep sack, rather than on the guesthouse’s bedsheets. I hit the streets the next morning to find a new guesthouse.
But, wow, did I luck out this time! Okay, I’m paying more than I wanted – USD 15, but it includes breakfast, so that brings it down to about USD 10 which makes it okay. The LV City Riverine Hotel is located on Fangum Road, which runs alongside the Mekong River, but because the hotel is new, the rates are quite reasonable (for now). I even have a photo of my room for you all to see. I met the owners’ daughter – she is studying in Australia but has returned to Vientiane for the Christmas holidays – that sounded so strange to me – because there is no evidence of Christmas here, that’s for sure. She misses Lao a lot – she finds the Australians always so stressed out. Sounds like what I found when I went back to Canada/U.S. this past summer!
I asked her to recommend a good dinner destination for Lao food – she suggested the Khop Chai Deu. It was quite funny, because this is the town’s expat spot, and I had drinks there the night before with another girl from Australia. Only she is living in Thailand and was just spending the night in Vientiane while she waited for her Visa to be renewed. Thanks to Thailand’s new policies, most long-term foreign residents have to leave the country every few months to get their visa renewed – what a pain. Anyway, we had a great chat, and were both happy to find someone to talk to for the evening.
But, back to the restaurant. My dinner at Khop Chai Deu was the best meal I have had in a very long time! I had a very international meal consisting of Indian Nan Bread, Vietnamese Spring Rolls and Lao Chicken with Sticky Rice. The flavours from each dish were each very distinctive, creative a most wonderful meal! This restaurant serves Lao, Chinese, Indian and European food and I have to stay that it is all quite excellent indeed. And the prices are the same as most other restaurants around Vientiane!
Back at my new hotel, I ran into the owners who were entertaining old friends in the lobby. The man’s high school chum has been living in Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA for the past 20 years or so! Needless to say, I was invited to join them for some cold beer and Canadian conversation. Before going to bed and having the best sleep ever, I took advantage of my 20% discount in the adjoining massage shop; it’s owned by the same people!
My destination for lunch the next day was JOMA Bakery Café (featured highly on the internet and in my Lonely Planet guide. A slice of pizza, a small side salad and an iced coffee cost the following: Lao Kip: 42,000 OR Thai Bhat: 156 OR U.S. Dollars: 4.33 That’s right – they use three different currencies here. I can even pay with combinations of currencies; it’s very difficult to keep straight, let me tell you – I just hope I have enough money to complete my trip!
Wats (temples) are all the rage here in Laos, but I decided to take my time about visiting the Wats. God knows, I still feel completely ‘Watted’ out, from visiting all the temples in Thailand and Cambodia over the past year and a half! Yesterday I chose to visit Vat Si Saket at 3pm – turned out to be the best idea I had all day – hardly anyone was there! It was so quiet; I could easily hear the bats (that’s right – BATS!) chirping to each other under the eaves of the Wat – eerie! Vat Si Saket is the only temple known to have survived the Siamese invasions, and as a result is the oldest building here in Vientiane. The temple is surrounded on three sides by L-shaped walled corridors (called cloisters). These interior walls are riddled with small niches that contain over 2,000 silver and ceramic Buddha images. The temple features a flowered ceiling inspired by Siamese temples. The walls of the Wat itself contain thousands of niches which display over 6,500 small silver and ceramic statuettes of Buddha. Some efforts have been made to restore the murals on the walls and doors, but unfortunately the result is quite amateurist; it would have been better to let the original paintings fade out on their own, rather than to attempt to recreate them with bright colours, like they have done to some of the murals.
Another famous site in Vientiane is Patuxay, which strongly resembles the Arc de Triumphe in Paris, but is ornamented in Lao style – the Europeans usually put this first on their travel itineraries!
Today, I hired a taxi driver to take me to the famed Buddha Park. It’s a park full of Buddhist and Hindu sculptures and statues, all designed by one very eccentric man, a yogi-priest-shaman (apparently) in the late 1950’s. Many of the sculptures are quite bizarre, but at the same time very compelling. But the site itself is quite wonderful, the park is located alongside the mighty Mekong River, with Thailand easily visible on the other side. Got some great pictures, and at the same time, had a simple, but enjoyable conversation with my taxi driver despite his limited English ability and my non-existent Lao ability!
Stay tuned for more….
Tags: Travel
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