Advertisement
Published: June 25th 2009
Edit Blog Post
So we embarked on our journey from Luang Nam Tha to Vientiane the capital city of Laos. The journey was due to take 22 hrs and they actually did it in 20in the end.
We left on the bus at 7.30am (durge) and the bus was ik and pretty roomy. Within minutes we realised what we had let ourselves in for. A real white knuckle ride as an extra from chips with mirrored raybans and all sped off up and down the most winding roads we have ever had the misfortune to traverse. Of course the road was litterally hugging the mountain as all scary mountain roads should, but then we had to deal with this mad man driving. He was driving so fast we were practically on two wheels the entire first half an hour going full pelt downhill with all the windows open (sweat box). Terrified is just not strong enough a word. Many times on this trip I have had to make myself fall to sleep to avoid the fear which arrises from being on public transport in South East Asia. It was so bad Dan even moved seats to not be able to see the edges
coming towars us and then insisted he was getting us off the bus as soon as the guy had a stop of some kind. This stop did come about 1hr later after we and all the other passengers had almost given up hope for ourselves. All we could think was that he was really really pissed off with someone and was on a deathwish and we were all going with him. Thank god the secondary driver took over so early.
Obviuosly we have already told you about the unfortunate state of affairs with people in South East Asis and travel sickness, well imagine this trip. Tenzin ended up with someones vomit on her arm (although this wasn't quite as bad as when a pissed American teenager had tried to get in bed with her in the dorm room they were sharing and when she pushed him off he turned round and pissed on her head!!) also Dan had the oldest woman in the entire world sitting next to him on a teeny plastic chair and her grandaughter had been stuffed between some people across the aisle. It was soon apparent that the child was on first name terms
with old armitage shanks as grannie proceeded to stuff her head into a pink plastic bag and then tied it around her ears. Not sure what Esther Rantzen would have to say about that one. so the kid vomitted and vommitted and grannie kep her inside the bag umtil it was 100% used up, ans then tied it up and passed it to Dan!!! Hilarious , what a great souvenir of Laos!! Said item was flung out of window and then Grannie decided to wipe childs face with dirty dishtowel horror. Dan came to the rescue once more with reams of tissue paper and then wet wipes which the old lady didn't seem too sure of but grabbed them but the bucket load anyway and stuffed them into her huge wicker shopping basket. I was feeling a bit itchy due to all the rancid mosquito bites and was reaching for the tiger balm, well I didn't manage to keep that for long, She saw it in Dans; hands and just leant over laughing and stuck her big old finger in it (yukky!) sniffed it earnestly and then grabbed the kiddie and rubbed loads under her nose and all over her
neck. I have myself been using this technique on bus journies tio cover up the smell of vomit and it works fantastically for a good sleep!!!
Enough, anyway the important thing is that the frigging bus arrived at the bus station(8km out of town) 2 hours early at 4am. I cannot express to you what a terrible time of the day this is to arrive and try to find a room, its just the worst ever. we eventually paid some overpriced fee to get into town and then had to wander round in the dark to find road names and landmarks and were generally really bloody grumpy. After waking up the porters at two hostels that had been recommended and them giving us their nasty prices Tenzin and I went off to wake up the rest of Vientiane in our search for rooms. eventually we found two, one really was harping back to the bad old days in India (stains, no real walls, etc you don't need to know!!) and the other was just mildy unappealling, but everything looks worse late at night or early in the morning. So we had been searching for 1.5hours and had pretty much
knocked on every guesthouse door, the only things we was that were cool were the monks in queues collecting alms outside the Wats and the prospect of some baguettes and fruit shakes (hurrah)
Utterally knackered we chilled out until the rumble of the stomachs forced us out and then we ate and explored the streets close by. We saw lots of Wats, but we were watted out by then anyway!! The mauin thing was that it must be the most relaxed and lazy capital city ever. There were nowhere near the amount of people roaming the streets that we were used to and just nothing much happening!! The place is compact , quite cute, colonial, French influenced, lots of bakeries, minimarts, fruit stalls, little local eateries, baguette stalls and more importantly for Dan the fantastic and healthy Juice Heaven, lots of cute stores, a mini mall with copy products and in the evening everything comes to life with the street food markets, fabulous and quite cheap too.
We were totally prepared for the Arc d'Triomphe copy to be horrible and ugly and actually there is a plaque in place to appologise for its hideousness!! It was nice, its
in the middle of a wide avenue and actually gave nice views, its also housed in a park and the nicest thing was just seeing everybody chilling out, people taking their evening exercise, kids playing, little girls dancing. There was just a nice family atmosphere and then there is also a water fountain show in time to music which everone seems to enjoy. We did see one demon of a fat kid on a tiny bike(which as everybody knows who has been to this neck of the woods is hilarious as they are always riding bikes which are far too big)just screaming and chasing people which was odd.
Whist we were there we also visited the symbol of Laos which took ages to get to!! Its this huge golden edifice and is just gorgeous when the sun is setting. It has so much space around it , both outside the compound and inside, there are Wats full of monks and novices (who we spoke to again!)and full of people again exercising and kids playing football and running around playing this strange flip flop game they seems to love so much. OOh and Dan and I walked in on some
monks having their dinner when I was trying to find a loo, I could have died it was so embarrassing!!Everone loves chilling out here and iy has a great atmosphere.
We also visited the famous Buddha Park which was designed by a madman, seriously and they also let him make another one for some reason in Thailand!!Its quite a small space and you start off by entereing through someones open mouth!!You climb inside to find hundreds of different buddha images on several levels up teeny steep stairs. The rest of the park is filled with these strange statues which we obviuosly posed with!!! The best one was the giant reclining Buddha who came in at a good twenty metres in length.
It was basically ok, not as bed as most people say it is, quite relaing, sometimes its goo to go to a place with not much to do so you can get some rest!!!
So the next part is.......................................
Advertisement
Tot: 0.204s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 54; dbt: 0.1054s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb