Advertisement
Published: April 28th 2007
Laos - Vientiane
This was at the buddha park, the huge reclining buddha! Ace! Nike:
Before talking about Laos, i think its best to tell about the journey to Laos, the the frame of mind it put us in!!
Hanoi to Laos, 20 hours overnight, air conditioned, dvd playing, comfy seat super bus!!!!!!
Sounds great, it wasnt! It was 1 big lie!! The border crossing was a nightmare!!! No English signs, bribes needed to get back your passport, and constant pushing and shoving from a million vietnamese people at 7am isnt good, on the back of a night on an overcrowded bus, with people having to sit in the aisle, bags of rice everywhere, 24, yes 24 hours later we werent in the mood for a busy asian capital city, but Vientiane was no bangkok, or Hanoi, it was exactly what we needed.
After finding some cheap digs, and a few hours of sleep we decided to go out and get some food, soon we realised something was different about Vientiane, the people were friendly, very friendly, even by the usual super friendly asian standards, and this was a capital city!!!! It was also quiet, really really quiet, but it was just what we needed!!
The next day was spent
on a bumper tour of the cities sites. Nat and I, aided by our trusty lonely planet (boo, hiss, i know!) hit the sites of Laos capital city! First the stupa in the middle of a traffic roundabout, then a few really amazing wats/temples, then we hit the 'concrete monster', I forget the real name of it, but it looks like the arch de triumph in Paris, well from far away at least. It is one of Vientianes main tourist attractions, but the Lao government, in complete honesty (which you defenatly wouldnt see in europe) describe it as a monster in concrete on a huge sign at the site. After that we hit the main tourist attraction in Lao, the golden stupa. This was an amazing sight, but best of all we got blessed by a monk doing prayers as we were buying water, how random, cant see that happening often in West Brom!!
After we caught a local bus over to the 'Buddah Park' basically a huge garden full of some amazing statues and sculptures, as with all the sites the pictures are worth a thousand words, but really this place was amazing, bizarre, but amazing!
The next
Laos - Vientiane
A beautiful temple day we got up early to catch the bus to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is famous for 'tubing'. Tubing is basically where you get in a huge inner tube and float down the river for a few hours while taking in the views. Basically Vang Vieng consisted of us watching a few films in the bars while avoiding the rain, swimming in the river with the locals and tubing, not a bad life really!!
After this we headed back down to Bangkok (on the way bumping into someone i used to work with!), and then the beaches, but you can read about that soon hopefully.
Although we only spent a few days in Laos it really was a great place just to chill out and take in the surroundings, i wish we had more time to really see more, but im sure we will be back!!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.148s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 11; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0884s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
mom and stevie =)
non-member comment
howdy!
hey u 2! its stevie but moms here 2 lol just av a mooch at ur piccies look like ur having a brill time. chek ur little impressions u were doin of the statues nat ur crazy so r u nik, iv gota say nike i dont like ur beard haha have a shave u scruff! those dogs luk cute bring 1 home, actually dont they may have rabies lol stay away!! i went 2 watch spiderman 2day =) i thort it was quite good i wana be spiderwomen haha. well anyway glad ur having a good time im jelus of ur tan =( speak 2 u soon. luv and miss you loads xxxxx