A strangly calm asian capital city

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After a 12 hour train ride, 2 hours at the border and another hour on the road or so we finally made it somewhere. Laos is one of the poorest countries in the world. I heard it was awesome here but I was kind of expecting the worst.



Right away it was evident that Laos had far less money than Thailand. Their roads aren't paved, most houses are unfinished etc etc. During the ride I was beginning to wonder if we'd like it here.

Vientiane is the capital of Laos. Unlike other Asian capitals it's not busy at all. Things were calm, the tuk tuk drivers weren't aggressive, and things were really laid back. I quickly began to realize that this city was the much needed break I needed away from the city. Bangkok together with Taipei for a week definitely takes a toll on you.



The first thing we noticed is how cheap things are here. I thought Thailand was cheap, but this is CHEAP!!! The 3 of us are getting hotel rooms in French Colonial beautiful hotels for $5.00.....that's $1.80 each. Tonight for an even nicer place it's $1.30 each. Admission to the tourist attractions are 50 cents. We can eat at a good quality restaurant for $2.00 or a really fancy restaurant equivenlant to anything really expensive in Vancouver for $5.00 a meal. As you can imagine everything else is dirt cheap also. Including my new favorite beer....Beer Lao! 80 cents for a large bottle.
We've been in Laos for 4 days now (I'm writing this from Vang Vieng) and have been living really well for $15.00 a day. Fancy hotels and restaurants. I thought it would be very basic at most.....I guess I was wrong!



For being such a poor country, it sure doesn't seem like it. I mean it's evident in the infrastructure and the sidewalks with giant holes in them where sewer covers are missing, but there's no beggars here, and crime is almost non existent. I wonder if it's because we're in a communist country?

And the people. I've never seen so many friendly gentle people. It's all smiles all the time. Everywhere the people are hospitable and kind. It was particularly evident in the one place we went to. We read about a Lao herbal sauna and massage in the jungle outside of the city and decided to check it out. When we got there we had about 100 monks in orange saffron robes staring at us as if we were from a different planet. We felt uncomfortable, not in danger but rather that we were intruding. After a bit of walking one monk approached us and started talking to us. He wanted to practice his English. Then others started taking pictures of us, just like we wanted to, to them! He taught us a bit about his way of life and we taught him a bit about ours. They are truly curious about us as we are of them.

Later that night we went in a bamboo hut, stayed in a herbal steam room and then got a Lao style 1 hour massage. It cost $3.00. I sure can get used to this laid back style of life. We love it here!!



For more pictures check out

http://s124.photobucket.com/albums/p20/AGROculture/

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Photos

Me & the Monks!!
they wanted to know just as much about me as I did about them.

100's of monks in one place
We got a lot of stares at first, but then they were very friendly