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Published: November 10th 2006
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Welcome to Vientiane! Never heard of it? Well its the worlds most laid back capital city. The streets are dusty and full of children playing badminton and the main source of noise is the steady bell ringing of the ice cream man - oh and the ever present screech of "tuk-tuk?!" yelled by drivers wanting to, well, to drive you somewhere. Talking of driving the 'rush hour' traffic moves quickly and easily through the one-way system as people on two wheels who wish to head in the opposite direction simply hop onto the pavement and scoot along against the traffic. We love it and it was as part of this unconventional traffic system that we spent almost a week exploring on our rented bikes.
The city has virtually no tall buildings and all the roads are in the process of being paved, as tom so poetically pointed out "the pace of life is as slow as the mekong river" which flows through the city like a big brown sludgy thing. On the other side of the river is Thailand but it seems a world away.. Although it sounds like a rather sleepy kind of place things were actually hotting up
in the capital whilst we were there as the people of Laos took part in the That Luang festival. This is an annual homage to Buddha and takes place at the That Luang stupa which is said to contain some of the bones of Buddha. The week leading up to the full moon in November is when the festival takes place and on the morning of the full moon the people of Vientiane gather at the stupa to give offerings to monks from all over the country. According to the local paper the people give offerings in part to counter the effects of the recent increase in materialism in Laos which has ‘degraded peoples minds’ and that giving offerings increases merit and reduces stress. On the night of the full moon there is also a big party with fun fairs, food, music and dancing. Now according to the local Vientiane Times one of the purposes of the festival is to increase national solidarity and the party is a good way of making new friends, well it is very successful in this respect and as soon as we sat down the people at the next table adopted us and fed us
beer and peanuts, and eventually after many beers and peanuts taught us how to dance like a local. We had a fantastic night, in fact it was on the 5th of November so it was probably a lot like the fire works that you lot went to at home, (minus the hats and gloves). The paper the next day described how the live bands delighted the crowds, "particularly those from the provinces” so we suppose they must mean us because we were.
On our 'list of things to do' in Vientiane (which can be very short when you are idle back-packers, often it only consists of 1) get up 2) have lunch..) was to get a visa for our upcoming trip to Cambodia. Unfortunately for us this entailed four different lengthy cycle rides to the embassy, not because of any red tape, rather because of our inability to get organized (we forgot the photos, visited when they were closed, went back to apply and then again to collect our newly adorned passports, result). The embassy staff were nice and helpful though, even when being shouted at by irate Danish man who felt that he should be granted a visa
despite having absolutely no room left in his passport.
For some reason he decided that the best way to sweet talk the embassy would be to describe how if they wanted Cambodia to be a modern country and have lots of visitors then they should stamp his visa on the 'DO NOT USE' page of his passport. Not only were we not convinced by their logic but also it was interesting to note that he employed 'the louder i shout the more likely i am to get my own way' tactic from the '' I am a foreigner therefore I know more than you" school of thought. Tut tut, not only did he forget the simple rule that immigration and border control people (much like bouncers) are highly unlikely to change their minds, particularly if you talk down to them, but he also neglected to remember (or perhaps had not noticed) that people in S E Asia are very reluctant to raise their voices - unless they are trying to sell you something of course - and in most cases shouting will quite simply get you nowhere.
Not that we have tested this theory out of course, don't
think for a minute that we have been going around trying to provoke people into shouting but it is common to see visitors yelling to get their own way and to no avail. Take for example the group in Laos who having brought a bus ticket to the border became hysterical when they were delivered to the aforementioned border, only to be inform that this was the end of their ride.
"Were being ripped off!" shouted the worlds loudest girl for about 10 mins "the border is where the two countries meet, take me there!" Imagine their horror when this little group of Americans (well they were!) discovered they had to (gasp) walk the 50 odd m across no-mans-land.. the moral of this story however is not that Americans don't like to walk anywhere, I couldn't possibly comment but more that if they had not had a heated raised voice argument for about 10 minutes they a) might have got a lift with us b) would not have looked so stupid and most importantly c) the rest of us would have got away a lot quicker.
We of course are fantastically well behaved tourists and employ total cultural
Cool trees
This beauty is made out of concrete that was donated by the Americans (in an attempt to make up for bombing the crap out of them for years?) in order to make a runway now nicknamed the 'vertical runway' sensitivity at all times, honestly.. on another note it seems that Vientiane must love us as much as we loved it because we talked about leaving a couple of times but could not bring ourselves to do so, and when we finally booked a ticket the bus never arrived and we had to stay an extra night at the Thong Bay Guesthouse. Secretly we were delighted about this as it meant we could stay in our favourite city in one of the nicest guesthouses around (with the best hammocks). We finally left on the 8th of November and headed south to the Thousand Islands of the Mekong River, but that’s another story.
Send us lot of exciting news/stories/pictures asap, oh yeah can't wait to see everyone in January (the 16th) so hope you are organizing a variety of inventive welcome home celebrations.
Lastly was delighted to see that Winchester was voted the best place to live in Britain, but of course we all knew that didn't we.
much love
liz and tom
http://www.channel4.com/4homes/ontv/best&worst/2006/winchester
ps those fairground games look easy, but they are not. The darts were weighted, the bowls too small and the tennis
ball must have been.. ok perhaps we were just terrible at them..
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