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Published: November 18th 2007
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I could of happily spent more time tubing in Vang Viang but we had to make our way down to Viantiane, the capital of Laos. The capital is a lot bigger than the other places we have visited in Laos but it still felt small, which I liked. I purposely made sure we had a hostel room with a tv as I thought that West Brom would be on. I got up at 3am and to my dismay Arsenal v. Reading was on. Happily I woke up to the news that we won 4-0. We took a walking tour around Viantiane and decided to play the role of culture vultures for the day. We saw a lot of Wats on the way but did not feel the need to go in them as I have seen enough temples now to last me a lifetime. The museums were all shut when we got to them so we went to the Laos national stadium. It was about the same size as a non-league football town and had a massive billboard with Michael Owen overlooking the pitch. So much for a day of culture. There is very little in Viantiane for young travellers to
do. The next day we hopped in a tuk-tuk and went to the Beer Lao factory. When we got there we were told there were no tours because there was a problem with the production line. To make up for it they gave us a free beer and some stickers, this made me more than happy.
From Viantiane we took a night bus to Bangkok. This meant getting to the border by tuk-tuk then getting our visa stamps before crossing the friendship bridge into Thailand. Laos was a really beautiful country and I regret not having had more time to see more of it. We only really went to the three main touristy places and we hear there is a lot more worth doing there. We arrived in Bangkok about 5:30am and searched for a guesthouse. This time we stayed off the busy Khao San Rd to get away from the noise and bustle. During the day we went to see the sights of Bangkok including Wat Arun which is a massive temple but we were able to climb to the top so at least it was slightly different to all the other temples. the rest of our tour
saw us go through a university, see some more wats, get a ferry, see some more wats, then enter Chinatown.
The next day Donkey's mate Ben and his sister Sarah flew in to join our travelling team that I like to call team Barry. Donkey went to wait at the airport in the morning so me and Dan took the opportunity to go and play some golf. We went to a course called Kantarat golf course. It is not the most amazing of courses but was a real novelty because it was situated in between two runways of the old international airport. It was very surreal teeing off while a plane takes off just over your head. The other novelty was that we had to have caddies. I have never had a caddy before and it was very strange but our caddies were really nice, gave us advice and enjoyed laughing at how bad we were. I was absolutely terrible and my finest moment was missing a moving car by about 2 yards. When we got back to central Bangkok we met up with Donkey, Ben and Sarah and headed to Patpong. Patpong has a night market but is
Laos national stadium
I would make a great manager more well known as it houses the majority of Thailands go-go bars and "ping-pong" shows. It was really touristy and even families were walking and sitting outside these bars.
The next day was a huge shopping day. We went to the huge Bangkok weekend market again, where Donkey and Ben bought some shocking shellsuits. After a few hours dodging people and haggling we took the sky train to the big shopping mall in Bangkok. It is quite a modern shopping mall, which makes it strange when you are haggling in a proper shop. It is amazing how most of the time just giving them a ridiculously low offer makes them cut their asking price in half straight away, it then takes a bit of determination to get them down to the price you want. After another couple of hours I was sick to death of shopping, so it seemed a good idea to walk up the road and see the national stadium. Luckily when we got there a game was on. We were turned away from one entrance for not having a ticket but then tried another and just walked straight in. The stadium holds about 30,000 and you are sat quite a way back from the pitch. The football was ultimately poor but watching the crowd was entertainment in itself. One side of the stadium hold up colored card to make pictures or words. They did this through the whole game and were directed by a guy with a megaphone. On the night we intended to go for a quiet drink but we ended up having a 3 litre tower of beer each. The towers have there own taps and there is a tube of ice in the middle to keep the beer cold. It took a huge effort but I managed to despatch the whole lot. When it came to pay the waiter demanded 200 baht more than the price on the menu. His argument was that we had drunk san miguel even though we ordered Chang and got Chang towers. San miguel was not even on the menu. After refusing to pay the waiter pulled in a policeman. Luckily the policeman was the nicest guy I've ever met. He asked us to pay to avoid any problems with the bar and agreed with us that the bar need to change there menus and not try to decieve their customers.
Today we are getting a night bus to Ko Samui to get some beach time. Can't wait.
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