Advertisement
Published: October 30th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Lao or The UK?
A British Pub even in Lao After getting over the border four of us managed to find a tuktuk type bus that would take us to the city for 30b which seemed reasonable until they dropped us off on the highway by the market. We later realised this was because of all the one way roads. From here we walked about 15 mins to the street with lots of guesthouses on it. Easy.
After taking a much needed shower and getting lunch, Hester and myself went for a look around. There are loads of cute little hand craft shops, the city is very French, bakeries, French baguettes everywhere, little streets with French style houses. We walked down by the river to watch sunset over Thailand which was beautiful. There were lots of locals doing there exercise's there as its been made into a park area with exercise machines then pancake stalls!
After dinner I went for a walk around the night market and shops. The market is tiny compared to the ones in Thailand but its got some locally handmade crafts from the villages in the north.
First full day in Lao and the main objective was to get a visa for Thailand.
We had found out where to go and that there would be about 300 to 400 people doing the same as us, great. We had to be there before twelve as the gates closed but we were going to have to be patient. We slept-in until ten probably because we spent the night before on a bus but that meant we had to rush a bit. After breakfast we hired bikes and cycled to the office. We were there two and half hours. I wasn't able to get the triple entry visa I wanted to, and had to settle for a double then get a single later. The visa only took a day to process and we were able to pick it up the following day at two which was much quicker! It did amaze me though how many people were complaining about the wait, some people obviously haven't had to apply for many visas before!
As we had the bikes for the day we cycled around for a couple of hours. We biked down by a small river to the Patuxai monument a copy of a similar monument in France, however this one has never been completed. It
set in beautiful gradens though with views from the top over the city. We then cycled down by the Mekong river until my bum and knees hurt too much I headed back to the guesthouse.
I went out for a walk to a different part of the town and discovered the worlds best mango's, really they were amazing! Is it bad to eat a kilo of mangos a day? And the coconuts! They are yummy too (not sure the guy at the guesthouse appreciates the bent spoons though).
There isn't really much to do in Vientaine but its a nice city to walk around and take photos of especially down by the river and the temples although I'm probably going to end up with 4gb worth of photos of temples on my camera. After collecting our visas Hester left to return back to Thailand where I went to an Indian cafe for dinner. The first real Indian since Brunei and it delicious. (food is important when your travelling). You can also buy French baguette sandwiches everywhere and it makes a big change from having rice twice a day everyday. The only annoying thing is you look half interested (sometimes
Over to Thailand
The view on the Mekong overlooking Thailand not even half) and half a dozen ladies start trying to get you to buy a baguette from them.
The day after receiving my visa I took a minibus to Vang Vieng and after debating whether to take that or the public bus I'm think I'm glad I took the minibus cos it was one hell of a four hour trip.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.113s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 57; dbt: 0.0433s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb