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Published: November 29th 2005
- FOOD: Croissants and cake on the plane; hot, spicy papaya salad; banana and condensed milk pancakes, fresh spring rolls with mint, noodles and egg inside and sticky rice and coconut balls; fish on a stick; Scandanavian bakery; JoMa bakery; sweet Spy wine; the best beer in Asia - Lao beer.
- PEOPLE: No taxi men hassling at the airport - just one polite man!; Lao people soooo laid back; many people crowding the river side for the festival; kids selling balloons; speed walkers; smart school children; crazy bus driver and his mates partying hard.
- AREA: Cranky old Lao Airline plane; untouched Mekong river with grassy banks and Bun Nam (River Festival) taking place (fireboats, fireworks, lit floats and a boat race); small and chilled out capital; Patuxai (Arc de Triomphe of Laos); dancing, lit up fountain; Talat Sao morning market temptation; Pha That Luang (Great Stupa and big, gold wrapped chocolate); Wat Si Saket temple; Xieng Khuan Buddha Park on a rickety, old bus.
- ACCOM: Full guesthouses; bathroom invaded with ants; overnight bus to Luang Prabang - local, party bus.
Sun 16th Oct: I wanted to get up VERY early to donate blood
but had a sore throat so decided against it. The boys took us to the airport with all our masses of luggage and we said goodbye to them. Charnt had told us the sad story of how he wants to marry his girlfriend but in Cambodia, the female's family ask for a certain amount of money from the groom and he's still saving hard to meet it. So I was glad we'd helped a little towards it!
The airport is small, modern and new. While waiting for our flight to Laos we filled in a LONG questionnaire on Indochina for a research group and had hoo-ha trying to pay for stamps with a mixture of baht, riel and dollars!
Lao (the French added the 's' and it's original name is Lan Xang (Land of a Million Elephants)) is the same size as the UK but with only 6 million people living here. It's ethnically diverse with many hill tribes and mountains and plateaus make up 70% of the country. It's very slow developing under the usual story of a corrupt communist government allowing the rich to get richer the more foreign aid is invested. 80% of the population work
Arc de Triomphe look-a-like
Patuxai - according to Lao people, it's a horrible concrete monster!in agriculture, fishing or forestry but opium is Laos' biggest export earner. All Lao men are expected to be monks for at least 3 months and it's illegal for a Lao person and a Westerner to have sex!
The communists were harsh to begin with and stopped Buddhism but have calmed down on it now.
King Setthathirat moved the capital from Luang Prabang to Vientiane (original name was Wieng Chan which the French translated to Vientiane) in the mid 16th Century. The French ruled until 1953 when Laos gained independence. Laos is the most heavily bombed nation as the Secret War from 1964 - 1973 by the USA to stop the North Vietnamese communists meant the CIA agents in Laos acted as 'aid' and 'civilian' pilots dropped one plane load of bombs onto the country every 8 minutes for 24 hours a day for 9 years, costing US taxpayers 2 million dollars per day.
By the war end, the bombing amounted to half a tonne for every person in Laos....
A not so modern plane flew us to Vientiane - a little plane that clanked and groaned it's way through take off but got us there safely. It
was only after that I read in the guide how Lao Airlines are not the safest and are so bad that the embassies advise their staff against using them!
Well, we were given croissants and cake and the plane didn't fall apart when we landed so I was happy.
Vientiane airport seems new and hardly anyone was around except unsmiley visa people (but smiley immigration staff). We got through departure quickly and prepared to be bombarded by taxi men. But only ONE taxi man was there to politely offer us his service. When we took him up on it he told us to pay at the official taxi counter first. WOW, how very civilised compared to Cambodia!!!
He even explained to us about how expensive certain guesthouses are and where to get cheaper ones.
In the street where a few backpacker places are, they were all full. We found one with vacancies which had a very spacious room but ants in the bathroom. It was very near to the river front though.
Laos is set on the Mekong river which is like how the Thames probably was in the old days. It's very wide with grassy banks either
side and only one tall hotel sticking out like a sore thumb further along. The road next to it was very busy with lots of stalls selling all sorts. Little restaurants had been set up to overlook the river and we stopped at one where we ordered an incredibly hot spicy papaya salad. It's a bit weird to get used to the money here - one pound is 16,000 kip.
I immediately noticed how laid back the people here are and it certainly does not feel like a capital city here as it's so small and chilled out. The Lonely Planet says that arriving in Laos is like sitting in an old, comfy armchair at the end of a hard day - that ahhhhh sensation. This is so very true.
Everything was shut as it's a Sunday except a few tourist shops selling nice goods. We strolled around the near empty streets, passing the huge and modern National Cultural Hall and the That Dam stupa monument (the 'black' stupa named after the 7 headed dragon that lives here and came to life in 1828 to protect the city from war).
We walked down a road very similar to
Gold covered chocolate
Pha That Luang (Great Stupa) the Champs Elysees that has Vientiane's version of the Arc de Triomphe at the end. Except this road does not have posh, designer shops down it, just a few big banks and nice restaurants. It's a smart, well kept road with hardly any traffic except for a few tuk-tuks (which over here are painted bright colours and have big pick-up truck type wheels).
Patuxai (Arc de Triomphe) was built in 1969 to commemorate the Lao people who died pre revolution. The stairs to get to the top were closed so we sat by the fountain next to it watching the water 'dance' and light up to music while the sun was setting.
We found out that the river side road is so busy as there's currently a big boat festival on. In the evening, it seemed busier with lots of children selling balloons in various shapes and banging speakers all competing with each other advertising their products.
We ate street food in the form of banana and condensed milk pancakes, fresh spring rolls with mint, noodles and egg inside and sticky rice and coconut balls. We didn't eat the fish on a stick which was a huge, full fish
stuck on a stick. There was a fairground and stages with live bands and it was all very manic. Nothing was happening on the river itself though.
Mon 17th: The noise from the booming speakers stopped quite early, like everything else in Laos, so I got some sleep (even with the hard pillows). Faced the miserable customer services people at the bank and walked out feeling like a bank with STACK loads of notes.
We breakfasted at a little Scandanavian bakery which was really nice and then visited the morning market called Talat Sao. There are many stalls here selling all sorts: food, textiles, electrical goods etc. Wow, the temptation was too great.
We went back to the Arc to go up it and I was amused to see a plaque explaining it's history and saying it's a horrible, concrete monster! They sure know how to promote tourism here. The Arc also seems to be the place to speed walk around. It's harder to avoid the speed walkers than it is the traffic!
We happened to walk back down the road at lunchtime when the local school breaks for 2 hours. The school uniform here is really
Taking in the sun
Reclining Buddha, Xieng Khuan Buddha Park nice - a long, blue sarong with a pattern bordering the bottom, with a white shirt. They look very smart and certainly more relaxed than having a tie strangle them.
After a good lunch we caught a tuk-tuk to Pha That Luang (Great Stupa). Built in 1566, it's the most important national monument. It's possible to see the huge gold stupa (45m high) from miles away - it looks like a gold wrapped chocolate! A cloister surrounds it and it holds many Buddha images and student paintings.
After this we went to Wat Si Saket, near the Presidential Palace. Built in 1818, it's the oldest temple in Vientiane and in all the niches in the walls, there are about a trillion (actually number 2,000) small Buddha images. It's very calm there with lots of monks wandering around.
At the beginning of the road our hotel was down, there was a row of teenagers blocking the way. They were security for the river festival as Vientiane has experienced it's fair share of terrorist bombs in recent years. I didn't understand that they wanted to body search me but after 5 minutes of them giggling and signing, we worked it
out!
Nothing was on at the Cultural Hall or the Laos Traditional Dance Theatre because of the festival and we didn't want another repeat of the river front activity, so we just sat outside the hotel watching the world go by. The observation of the night was that Lao people seem happier and a lot wealthier than the Cambodians. The low of the evening was discovering all the ants that had decided my wash bag was a good place to hang out. Urrghh.
Tue 18th: JoMa bakery provided us with excellent breakfast and then we caught a local bus to the Xieng Khuan Buddha Park (Spirit City). It was quite hard work catching the bus purely because all the tuk-tuk drivers wanted to take us there and seemed very surprised that tourists actually WANTED to take the local bus! It was quite a rickety old thing and all the parts just about seemed to hold together - including the seats which had been picked to bits so the foam was spilling out everywhere.
I chatted to the monk and the Thai pilot who were sat next to me and tried to avoid the stares of the old man
who seemed fascinated by my clothing (or lack of it - I didn't pick the most appropriate outfit to wear... A short skirt and a low cut vest top with no bra - woops). The journey took us right past the Thai immigration point - I didn't realise Vientiane was so close to Thailand - not bad for a border city! The road was really bumpy at the end (why didn't I wear a bra?!) but we made it. At the bottom of the ticket for the park it advertises the fact that the 'road is good from Vientiane'. I assume this is a joke!
The park, built in 1958, is really cool and well worth going to. There are Buddha and Hindu statues everywhere of every possible god and icon. The most overwhelming is an enormous reclining Buddha who looks like he's enjoying relaxing under the sun. There's a pumpkin shaped building with a gaping mouth for an entrance and 3 floors depicting hell, earth and heaven. Narrow steps wind up to each level and there are stacks of sculptures dotted around.
We tried to sit down and relax but hadn't been organised to bring something to sit
Boats of fire
Bun Nam river festival on so the huge ants got the better of us after 5 mins and we sat in the cafe eating ice cream instead. A Lao boy chatted to us, mainly to practice his English I think, but I wasn't so impressed when he decided to slag off London (his knowledge came from his parents who live there). Jo seems to be the only other person I've met who defends the UK, it's people and it's capital as passionately as I do so we soon corrected him!
We grabbed a good spot in a restaurant overlooking the river, had more delicious food and tried the 'Spy' wine which was really sweet. Tonight was the main night for Bun Nam (River Festival) which takes place at the end of phansaa (Buddhist rains retreat). Lots of heuafay (fireboats) floated down the river carrying candles and lamps to make the boat appear to be on fire. We bought small floats made of reeds, leaves and orchids with a candle on top and set them off into the river for good luck and to release our sins and seek forgiveness (no comments about how one little float won't be enough please).
The crowds were really hectic again with more balloons than ever and fireworks being set off from the boats and restaurants. Very different to anything equivalent back home - the fireworks were like back garden ones and poor ones at that! It was interesting to walk around taking it all in though and to see the excitement of the kids of the cranky old fairground rides and the thrill when someone caught the freebies being chucked out from the stands (shower gel!)
Wed 19th: We had a brunch of pizza from our hotel and checked out of the ant invested room. We basically spent most of the day sitting at a riverside restaurant waiting to see the boat race which was the highlight of the last day of the festival. The fair and streets were still very busy but the boat race was a bit crap. Long boats with about 20 brightly dressed people rowing came along in two's every now and again. I think I'd been expecting a boat race with all the boats together rather than these little mini ones.
We then caught the overnight bus to Luang Prabang. We'd chosen the cheapest option rather than the VIP bus that's put on for tourists. It's only about 2 dollars cheaper but much more of an experience... It was a clapped out old thing which left late and had a teenage driver throwing a party for all his mates all night long! Jo said it felt like we were gatecrashers at his party. Asian love songs and pop BLARED out of the speakers which made them vibrate and we had the seats over the wheel (ie. no leg space). His driving and gear changing were so bad I nearly offered to drive... that was when he was actually driving and not stopping to pick up more mates (every 2 mins). We had to cling on for dear life as he drove very fast around bends (lots of them), chucking the bus about and over potholes. We had such long breaks, except for the one where we had to leave quickly as he'd reversed the bus into the roof of a shop (corrugated iron roofs aren't the most sturdy and it was all crushed in).
One of the stops was at Vang Vieng which is backpacker paradise with lots of river sport on offer (kayaking, 'tubing' (going down river in the tube of a tyre or something like that) and opium on sale. It looked quite sweet but we didn't have time to stay here. I've since heard it's beautiful scenery but possibly my hell with cafes and bars all totally catering just fot the backpacker and competing with each other on who can show episodes of 'Friends' at the loudest volume!
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