Vientiane

30/08/08 Saturday Day 16 Ode to the straight road
What a day. Where to start really! Got up at half 6 this morning because we wanted to leave the guesthouse at 7 to be at the bus station in time to check in and maybe get something to eat. The bus was at 8am. Out guesthouse lady had organised a tuk tuk for us and in fairness he was there in time. When we got to the station we were nearly ambushed by 3 or 4 guys all wanting us to go into a bus that was for Vientiane. We threw the bags in and took a walk around and then someone else came up to us and we showed him our ticket and he said to check in at the counter and they then showed us our bus……..which was a different and correct one. We were tried to be ripped off again. We got a roll and some coffee at one of the local stalls/restaurant! At least the bus left on time and there actually was assigned seating.

It says in the lonely planet book if you can not to sit next to or near children as they may get sick from the bus ride. As luck would have it mommy and little girl sat in the seats across the aisle from us. This paragraph is quiet disturbing so you may want to skip ahead! First of all before we ever set off the two of them were stuffing their faces of the usual local and extremely food! Not long after leaving I looked over and there was mommy holding up a bag to little girls mouth and out comes loads of gawk! And of course the bag was fired out the window. So that was grand enough. Just a little child sick. No sooner that the child barfed into a bag when I looked over and there was mommy stripping off the child clothes and holding another bag up to her. This time is was pee. Just lovely! And again this one when out the window. A short time later I happened to look over again and there was mommy holding up a bag to her own mouth. Another flood of gawk. Out the window with you! This was all in the first half of the 10 hour trip. Eventually we stopped for “lunch”. After lunch and no sooner had we left when I again looked over. A second episode of the pee incident. Out the window says you! After that both fell asleep and we thought everything was good. About 15 minutes to go, little girl was standing on the aisle seat. Next thing out comes projectile gawk. So nasty. I think some of the splash back hit Emer’s leg. That’s the end of the sick and disturbing part of the story.

Ode to the straight road. The road from Luang Prabang to Vientiane can only be described as kat. Imagine a 10 hour bus trip including the roads back to dingle (the inch way), molls gap, the conor pass, the bad bends between ballyvourney and macroom and stick in loads of potholes and that’s what it’s like. It was extremely bendy and twisty to our lunch stop which basically driving through the mountains. After that at least it was on the flat but it was pothole city. Half the time was spent driving on the other side of the road to avoid the potholes. Our nice lady in the travel agency told us it was a 9 hour journey. She must have forgotten the last hour of it because we certainly didn’t.

There also isn’t much point in having an ipod with you cause the bus driver had 2 cd’s. The first one was on repeat for the first 4-5 hours. The second one was on repeat for the last 4-5 hours. Even with the ipod on full blast it still only barely drowned out the noise. The first lot of much was the sound of the pan pipes. They love those over here! It was like being in a Chinese restaurant for 4-5 hours. And the sound was muffled too which didn’t help any bit at all!
The second set of music was a mixture of some kind of local pop mixed in with of course some pap pipes. Again like being in a Chinese restaurant.

Anyway we arrived in Vientiane and again got ambushed by dudes looking for us to use their taxi service. We decided to go out to the front of the bus station and see if we can get one there. Obviously the price they wanted into the centre was too high so I pegged them down a notch or two. This is the funny bit. No sooner had we hopped on to our tuk tuk it moved a few feet and stopped, only to pick up none other than mommy and little girl. What are the odds.

The main street here is full of the street walker and ladyboy type of persons, some with dodgy 5o’clock shadows and a big granny smith in their throats! Not good.

31/08/08 Sunday Day 17
Walked around pretty much the whole city centre in half the day. In a café now with free wifi, well for the first hour anyway. After that you have to pay for it! And it’s kat slow so there’s no way I’m paying for it! There’s an arc de triumph here, well some kind of their own version of it. Nice though and the street off it resembles the champs elysee in Paris. There isn’t much else here to do so the one full day is enough really. Did a bit of haggling in one of the local markets too. Had to buy me a new man back as the one I have is already falling apart.
Had a spot of lunch and then went to the swanky Laos Plaza hotel. Cost 20 dollars but it was worth it. And of course being Irish the sun decided to go into hiding. The pool was nice though.
Went to an Indian for dinner and a few drinks. That was about it really.

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