Vientiane - Day 1

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We're Here!!

We arrived nice and early at our Guesthouse in Vientiane. It's set in tropical surrounds, really lush gardens with an outdoor bar and lounge area and thatched-roof open huts to relax in.. .

Wouldn't you know it, once we were shown to our room, I promptly misplaced the key and 20 mins of hunting high and low failed to locate it - much to my embarrassment. I 'fessed up and offered to use one of our own padlocks til the key showed up or we bought another. Finally we set out to see the city. We barted with a tuk-tuk driver to take us into town for 12,000 kip (from 15,000). No doubt we still paid far more than a Local but at $1.60 for both of us, who could possibly complain?!

Our wanders around some of the main streets it's easy to see why people say it's not like most capital cities. Although traffic can be constant, it's not packed and nothing like the busy, aggressive throngs of bangkok, Chennai, Kolakatta ... or Melbourne, for that matter. Hardly anyone beeps their horn and the pace is comparatively sedate.

English-speaking locals are also less common once outside the main few streets. But most people are really friendly and eager to help if you look lost or slightly confused.

Over to Sam...
Lunch! Our first taste of the local food lived up to our expectations, we wandered around central vientiane until we found small open-fronted place frequented mainly by locals. The Lao eateries all have a large range of sauces permanently on the table which was quite exciting. I love sauces! I finally settled on stir-friend Morning Glory with pork while P ordered a spicy pork stir-fry, both with rice. They also came with a yummy bowl of chicken broth and chillies in oil. It was very hot, esp after adding some of the various chilli condiments and totally delicious. I just hope I don' pay for it tomorrow as working in East Gippsland didn't give me much spicy food pre-training (the old anchovy paste at Nan and Parp's after Christmas should have helped toughen me up...).

We survived the hottest part of the arvo in a small bamboo shelter next to Mekong sipping Beerlaos. It's quite nice but generally not chilled as much as we're used to in Australia.

Back to P...
Just for the record, according to a Lao ex-pat we met on the plane, "Laos" is pronounced with the 's'.

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Photos

Beerlao
First afternoon and Sam is already into the Beerlao. It was a great way to escape the afternoon heat.

Wat Mixai
Monk sounding the drum as evening approaches. The drum had a resounding bass that carried and carried and carried...

Night market food
You all know that we love our food (especially spicy) and we're determined to eat like locals if we can. We selected a couple dishes which were served with the customary basket steamer of khao niao (steamed sticky rice) and a bottle of Beerlaos. Mmmmm.

Mekong river
Early morning.
Even in the dry season it's easy to see why this is so important to many countries in southeast asia.

Comments

[Belinda Lee]

How exciting
Wow!! Sounds like a great start to your trip... Not much to report here. Same old, same old.

[Warren]

Hi!
I thought for a second there you were going to use the "anonymity" of the blog to hide the true identity of the one responsible for losing the key. But I see Prisicilla has accepted the blame and should now be ready to accept her punishment. Which I suggest to Sam should be the task of sourcing the ice cold beer! How can you possibly stay amoung "tropical surrounds, really lush gardens with an outdoor bar and lounge area and thatched-roof open huts to relax in" without enjoying really cold booze?!?!? Later Warren.