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Published: August 10th 2007
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Patuxai - Vientiane
The Arc de Triomphe, non?
Patuxai (in the distance) is Laos answer to the famous Paris monument. Apparantly it is built with cement donated by the USA for the construction of a new airport. Given the USA bombed the hell out of Laos (1.5 tonnes of ordnance per person) they were probably suppicious of the USA's motives for a new runway. Our journey to Vientiane was via a 10 hour overnight bus journey with the intent of saving a nights accomodation costs. What we gained in saved money we lost out in sleep! We discovered that the seats reclined just less than the amount needed to allow you to stretch out into a comfortable sleeping position, kind of like trying to sleep on an airplane but bumpier, noisier and with no refreshments or in travel entertainment... That is aside from the two French children in the seats in front of us who stared at us, owl like through their glasses, for a good 15 minutes before introducing themselves, then proceeded to talk to us (at us?) for the next 45 minutes non stop. Despite their cuteness I feigned sleep after that leaving Rob to continue his conversation with the youngest child and her toy dog.
Thankfully we hadn't given too much thought to the speed of the bus or number of potential obstacles that could have placed themselves in front of the bus, otherwise we may have needed to be dosed on valium to take the trip. During the day in Laos all forms of livestock (and people) saunter out into
Pha That Luang - Vientiane
Loas national monument symbolising both the Buddhist religion and Loas sovereignity. Oh, and there's Cath! the roads causing vehicles to slow, swerve or stop! Roads are a fairly relaxed affair in this country - even the 'major highways' can often be just a bit of extra ground between the two halves of a village. Nightime travel doesn't remove these obstacles (although some of them are asleep) it just makes them harder to see. Still having a fully surfaced road obviously helped and our driver didn't seem to be in any danger of falling asleep. Laos style karaoke videos kept him awake...
We seemed to be lacking the promised bus air conditioning during the night and had to peel ourselves off the seat when we arrived in Vientienne at around 5.00am. Cooler outside the bus than in. Cat and David (who had arrived the day before) had emailed the name of their guesthouse, so we waited at the bus station until a reasonable hour (6.30am), discouraging the various tuk tuk drivers who each tried to convince us that their extortionate fee was in fact reasonable for transport a mere 5km down the road. When the time came Rob went and entered vigorous negotiations with one driver and secured us a lift for a fair price
(much to the disgust of the driver).
Safe arrival at guesthouse - no rooms. Not a problem though, this is a common occurrence and being first arrival in the morning means that you are first on the list for rooms when people start the inevitable evacuation from about 9am. We waited, we smiled, it all turned out ok, and we ended up with the room next to Cat and David. We showered (much to the relief of everyone we encountered), hired bikes and set off to investigate the city. The first thing we noticed though was how much hotter it was now that we'd travelled so much further south. At 11am it was sweltering and felt like we were trying to cycle our bikes through treacle.
Some good news - Rob has his Australian Visa!!!! After asking for it to be sent to Vientiane for collection he set off early this morning to pick it up from the Australian embassy (bless them for processing the pick up on a day they're normally closed). Everything went smoothly and he's now able to run rings around himself in Australia for the next 2 years until it comes time to lodge
Rice Server Seller
This travelling salesman was definitely trying to corner the market for bamboo made rice servers. Cath was more than happy to oblige with a purchase. the application for permanent residency.
The 'sights' in Vientiane are located over quite a small area, so we started at Patuxai, Vientiane's attempt at replicating the Arch de Triomphe. Because we'd already had such a hard day we paused for an icecream and to bid farewell to David who's virus / food poisoning meant his enthusiasm for sightseeing was non existent (and bed was calling). There's only so much you can get out of a concrete replica of the Arch de Triomphe unfortunately, so we cycled 4km out of the centre to Pha That Luang - the most important national monument in Laos, and very lovely. It took us a while to work up this opinion as it really was too hot to sightsee, but we persevered and walked around the whole structure. It really was quite beautiful.
Cycling back towards the centre of town we were distracted by another market, the Talat Sao or morning market (so named despite being open all day). It was great, aisles and aisles of handicrafts to purchase! Rob lasted a mere 30 minutes and left Cat and I to shop away for a few hours. Best sight - the man selling
Cat, David, Cath and Rob (Vientiane)
(From left to right) Cat, David, Cath and Rob enjoy a game of cards over a stiff drink of fresh lemon juice. bamboo rice servers who literally carried his wares on his back (and very kindly stood for a photo after I'd bought one).
Another day, more heat, but enthusiastic explorers that we are we got up early to fit in more sightseeing before things got too oppressive. Decided to try and fit in the rest of the sights on the Lonely Planet walking tour. Before even thinking about such things though we had to fortify ourselves at 'House of Fruit', quite possibly the best fruit shake place in existence. They also did fantastic cheese and tomato sandwiches.
Headed towards the Mekong River and past the Presidential Palace (not very inspiring) ending up after a few wrong turns past the hospital (damn those roadworks) at Haw Pha Kaew, an old temple which now acts as a museum. Fortuitous really as we'd been heading for Wat Si Saket. Brilliant dragon (or Naga) balustrades outside and loads of bronze buddha's, so the cameras came out again.
Next stop was Wat Si Saket and we made it there without incident. Very glad we went in, beautiful temple (the oldest in Vientiane) with a surrounding cloister, the walls of which hold more than
Peek-a-boo
Naga balustrades at Haw Pha Kaew 2000 small silver and ceramic buddha images. The temple also holds hundreds of damaged buddha's in a special area.Rob and I had to bid a sad farewell to Cat at this point as she was headed to Thailand and we were travelling out to Wat Sok Pa Luang about 3 km out of Vientiane for a weekly meditation session. We had heard that there was also a massage and sauna place next door, definitely a cause for investigation.
The Wat was located in a semi rural setting and was incredibly serene and peaceful. We walked round first, then went to check out the massage. Although we didn't have enough time for a sauna (unfortunately as everyone having them looked very happy) we decided to have a massage. Talk about thumbs of steel!!! My calf muscles felt like they were going to come away from the bone! Had another tussle when she wanted to crack my fingers (eurrgghhh). At the end my massage lady grabbed opposite legs and arms and twisted me into positions that didn't feel at all natural, apparently so she could have the satisfaction of hearing my back crack! Rob's guy was just as ruthless. Although not
Headless Buddha Statues (Wat Si Saket)
This store room had hundreds of Buddhas decapitated during a purge of the religion hundreds of years ago. hugely relaxing it was certainly invigorating.
At a bit of a loose end without the fourth member of our travel group we ended up having an entertaining (and nice) dinner watching the local 'ladies of the night' mess about with two tourists, a beggar try to get money out of fellow diners (to no avail) before pulling a wad of money bigger than anything we've had so far on this trip out of her pocket, and a truck full of young women being dropped in town. Headed down to the River and followed a whim when handed an advertisement for the local Rugby night fundraiser. Brilliant fun, lots of Lao beer, Spy wine cooler, and Lao Lao whiskey to accompany one of the players who was great singing and playing guitar.
Our last day was spent mostly in the internet cafe, after an obligatory visit to House of Fruit. Cheese and tomato toastie again. I had 3... Another overnight bus trip that evening, this time to Savannakhet further south.
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