Vientiane…the End of Laos
Thursday, November 30th, 2006Thursday 30th November 2006
Tuesday night’s dinner consisted of us sitting by the riverside at plastic chairs and tables with little mock candles (these were candles in a cut out plastic bottle), and eating chicken laap. This is lettuce, mint, steamed mango leaves and other fresh herbs with minced chicken. I ate this with sticky rice. The traditional way to eat this is by picking up the sticky rice with your hand, rolling the dollop into a ball and pressing down on it, then scooping up the mince with your sticky rice and eating with your hand. No cutlery involved. The lady cooks the dish on a mobile cart and you can watch her do this if you want.
Yesturday we went on a Monument to Mekong walking tour. We caught a tuk tuk to the Pataxai. We climbed up this concrete building to get a good view of the city. This monument looks like the Arc de Triumphe from afar but it does have Lao style features and has 4 arches instead of just 2. The official Laos name for it is translated as ‘arch’ and ‘door or gate’ of Triumph. When you climb up you first reach a platform which allows you to see into the archway. The next two floors are filled with souvenirs and then the last two platforms enable you to see a great view of Vientiane.
Next, we walked to Talat Sao. This is Vientiane’s biggest market, selling textiles, TVs, fridges, watches, all sorts of goods. They also sell pirates Thai pop CDs and DVDs. I even spotted a DVD of Casino Royale -surely this is too early!! Towards the south eastern part of the market you can watch people cutting and blow torching jewellry in work stations in a long line. This is fascinating to watch.
After the market we headed to That Dam. One of Vientiane’s oldest Buddist stupas, known as the ‘Black Stupa’. Local legend says that it was once coated in a layer of gold – it is hardly even black now – you can see the red brick coming through. Next, it was off for some food. We headed down a side street for some ‘khao jii paa-te’. This is french bagette stuffed with Lao style pate and vegetables and salads and dressing. It was yummy. The lady makes the baguettes up in a glass cabinet in front of you. The baguette was still warm as i ate it.
Suitably rested, off to Wat Si Saket. On the way we saw the Presidential Palace. A big white chataux, which even though it is now only used for ceremonial occassions, you cannot enter. Wat Si Saket is special because it has many buddah’s in it. The interior walls of the cloister are filled with little holes in the walls containing buddahs. There are over 2000 silver and ceramic buddah images and over 300 seated and standing buddahs here. There are alos many Lao style buddahs here which do look different to the Thai buddahs. Many of the Lao buddahs have their eyes shut and they seem to look a bit friendlier. There is also a cupboard here which you can peer into containing lots of damaged buddahs. The man at the temple said that they were going to restore the murals which have eroded in many parts, next year.
The next temple we went to was Haw Pha Kaew. This temple was built for royalty in the 16th century but it is now a museum for religious objects. It is here that you can see different buddah poses:
‘Calling for Rain’ = Standing with hands at sides
‘Offering Protection’ = Palms stretched out in front
‘Contemplating the Tree of Enlightenment’ = Hands crossed at the wrists
We walked from here to the brick-paved promenade where we sat on a two seater swing and bought drinks from an outdoor drink vendour. I chose a pepsi, which come in glass bottles here (the ones we used to get back at home before they changed to plastic ones), which the lady poured into a small plastic bag. You can then choose to have ice or not and she pops in a straw. Pretty cool swinging with a bag of pepsi.
On the way back we walked through Wat Mixay, a yellow temple which has gates flanked by two friendly looking guardians. At Wat Ong Teu Mahawihan we saw the 16th century bronze buddah. This is one of the most important temples in Laos as the Deputy Patriarch of the Lao Monastic order has his offical residence here. There is also a Buddist Institute, a school for monks, here who come from all over the country to study the Buddah’s teachings. Accross the road is Wat Hai Sok, a temple which has a 9 tiered roof. While we were wandering around two novice monks approached us and we made friends with them and swapped email addresses – pretty funny. The last temple of the day was Wat In Paeng.
Today we fly back to Thailand.
georgiebees