ChinaTeacher

Well, here I am, writing to you from the capital city of Vientiane, Laos.  But, I’d like to backtrack a little. 

I love Thai Airways!  Remember what air travel was like, about 20 years ago?  Seats with lots of knee-room, real cutlery, wine with dinner, and cognac after dessert?  Thai Airways has all that, and more!  I received a beautiful floral corsage after my flight to Bangkok, and then again after my flight to Vientiane!  I spent the night in Bangkok Airport because of my late flight arrival, and was due to depart early the next morning for Vientiane.  I was fully prepared to sleep at the airport, because I heard they had ‘day-beds’ you could rent, but I was totally unprepared for Bangkok’s new airport!

I have two words to describe it – MASSIVE and GARGANTUAN!!  It is massive, on the biggest scale possible!  There are miles of shops, restaurants, and bars!  I must have have walked several miles, in different directions, due to misinformation provided by several ‘helpful’ airport staff members!  But, when I reached the ‘day-room’ hotel in Bangkok Airport, where I fully intended to spend the next 6-8 hours sleeping, I discovered their hourly charge for 8 hours equalled my budget for THREE WHOLE DAYS!  I couldn’t do it, not at the very beginning of my 6-week trip!  8 hours would cost me USD126!  Had I know this in advance, I would have taken a bus into town and found a cheap guesthouse in Khao San (where I have been before).  But, I wasted almost 2 hours just trying to find the damn day-beds!  Eventually, I discovered that Thai Airways also has an ‘economy’ lounge for its passengers, featuring ‘sofas’!!  Guess where I spent the night?!  It wasn’t too bad – I’m just glad I had my ear-plugs with me!

  I also witnessed the most gorgeous sunrise through the massive airport windows today – absolutely wonderful indeed!  And, during my flight from Bangkok to Vientiane, I was able to study the landscape as we flew over Thailand, and then Laos.  The patchwork of farmland in Laos is certainly not as planned out as it is back in North America.  And, every now and again I would see some rather strange mountain ranges – one was very long, but quite narrow and steep, and another resembled Mongolia’s hinterland – strange indeed!  Didn’t see any of the craters left by the U.S. during the war with Vietnam, but I suspect most of the damge was created in the east of Laos, and we flew in from the west.  I’ll see more later, I am sure!

Now, I am in Vientiane.  I found what I thought was a great deal at a guesthouse right downtown – only USD 6.00!  But, tonight, upon closer inspection, I discovered it is really dirty, and worse thing of all – there is no plug outlet so I can blowdry my hair!  (and recharge my camera batteries!).  Needless to say, I will be shopping around tomorrow morning for another hotel, and undoubtedly stretching my guesthouse budget too!

I spent most the day just wandering around town, trying to get the lay of the land, so to speak.  I had read that it was easy to walk around the whole of Vientiane, but I beg to differ!  At 3:00pm, I caved in and hired a tuk-tuk driver to drive me around for an hour or so, just so I could get a better idea of how big the city is, or isn’t.  There are a ton of Wats (Temples) around, but I am pretty much templed out from previous holidays to Thailand and Cambodia.  I do plan to check out the Buddha Park tomorrow, after I find a new place to stay, that is!

I have already discovered that there are lots of wonderful French-style bakeries and cafes around (just my style), featuring baguettes, chocolate and fabulous coffee – It looks like they just want everyone to sit around and eat while they’re in Vientiane!  I met a photographer from the States while I was in one shop this afternoon – we spent a few hours together, trading travel tales and the like.  He has asked me to join him for the next few days, but to be honest, I really just want to chill out on my own for a little while – I’m so independent, aren’t I?!  It’s funny – I complain that travelling alone is boring and lonely, and given the chance to change that, I fall back on wanting to remain alone – go figure!

Well, let’s see what tomorrow brings, shall we?!  Stay tuned….!

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 17th, 2007 at 5:49 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.