Laughing through Vientiane

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My trip to Vientiane was uneventful. I was picked up at the travel agent in Kao San Road and walked to the bus stop picking up other travelers on the way. The first was Joy, a New Zealander with a fresh tattoo on her ankle - “Joy” in Thai - followed by a couple of Irish lads and others.

The bus left after an hour wait and we had a pretty uneventful journey to Vientiane. We also failed to sleep much and spent most of the next day in bed recovering having arrived at 10am.
The following day, Joy and I spent the day as tourist trying to enjoy the Lonely Planet recommended walking tour around Vientiane. It was shit but we enjoyed each others’ company making fun of the tourist “attractions”.

The first stop was Patuxai, some monument built in 1962 to become the symbol of Laos and emulate the Arc de Triumph in Paris. This ridiculous purposeless building which was built from cement donated by the Yanks to build a runway (the Americans later built one themselves) had all the markings of communist architecture, planning, and finesse 13 years before the communists came to power; it had no purpose other than symbolism, was nothing other than bare concrete inside and was incomplete. It had 3 stories of souvenirs that no tourist would want to buy (although I was tempted by the t-shirt advertising the non-existent Hard Rock Café Vientiane) and culminated in a seventh story viewing platform that could accommodate perhaps 6 people at one time to experience what the Lonely Planet described as “unbeatable views of the city”. The Lonely Planet may even be right, but the best views of Vientiane could easily be beaten by any view of any other city. Any other. It just looks like urban sprawl on a flood plain with two temples visible, a partially hidden Presidential Palace, and what looked like the Communist Party HQ. The saving grace of this thing was the sign at the base which described it to a tee.

After walking and laughing out of Putuxai we headed to the National Tourism Authority which wasn’t much better. The guys there spoke English and there were some nice posters around, but without any specific questions there wasn’t much info to be had. At least they had a city map. One of the guys took a shine to Joy and presented her with a free business card sized calendar. We laughed some more.

The market was just around the cornet and, with neither of us having much interest in markets, we had barely a cursory look before stopping for lunch at a place with English menus. Anywhere with English menus meant tourist prices but we were happy to pay the extra 50c to know what we were getting. After lunch a soft drink and a freshly squeezed cane juice, we headed past the haberdashery section with a gaudy assortment of lace that no self-respecting fashion-aware or -unaware person would be seen in.

We laughed our way down to the Presidential Palace and attempted to enter the apparently deserted front gate. A guard appeared from nowhere and suggested a different route to the other side of the palace, so we circumnavigated the grounds where were in dire need of Jim’s Mowing and headed to some temple-museum thing nearby.

This temple, ___, built in ____, is the only temple in Vientiane to have survived the war and housed 8062 Buddhas. Neither of us being temple freaks, we hot bored after a couple of hundred identical Buddhas. Even pl[aying “spot the difference” didn’t around our interest beyond a dozen or so, so we ventured into the temple itself past a large “no photography” sign decorated with a roll of exposed film and forgot to take our shoes off. The four or five other tourists there had all taken their shoes off at the “No photography” sign and two were happily taking photos. Not that there was much to take. The place was supposed to be famous for its pseudo frescoes - paintings on dry plaster - which had all but peeled off, and those that remained were too faded to make much sense of the partial drawings that were left. The rest of the interior looked much like any other temple except for the English signs describing the various Buddhas. The big on was Grand Buddha, the standing ones were Standing Buddhas, the walking one was Walking Buddha, and you can guess what the sitting one was called. At least we left the place laughing.

Back at the hotel I met two Brissie girls who were going to the riverside for dinner. When Joy and I wandered down for dinner we caught up with them and enjoyed a wonderful sunset on the Mekong and a candle-lit dinner. About twenty beers later we headed back to the hotel for another beer. Joy and one Aussie returned while I enjoyed a couple of beers with the first girl I’ve met in ages who can drink. We went to bed but it wasn’t a very memorable experience. She and her friend had already left by the time I got up to nurse my hangover.

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Photos

Arc de concrete
This doesn't need much of an explanation other than what is written in the next photo.

The description
It neglects to mention that floors 4-6 are full of souviner shops selling trash.

The Mekong River
is pretty dry at this time of year

Sunset on the Mekong
The view from our drinking spot