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Published: March 9th 2008
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Victory Monument
From a distance. The reason for the title is to be honest, there isn't much to do in Vientiane. It's as if Laos used all their culture in Luang Prabang, all their fun in Vang Vieng and spread beauty and laidbackness evenly everywhere else, except the capital. Don't get me wrong, it's by no means a horrible place, just a city with little draw for tourists.
We arrived mid afternoon, and as I had read it was a bit of a wasteland, we thought we may as well try and see what little there is to see that afternoon. We checked into a basic but clean guesthouse and headed out. The main sight I had heard of in Vientiane is the Victory Monument. An arch based on the Arc de Triumph, but bigger and uglier. It was started in the 60's (not exactly architectures finest decade as it is) but was never finished. An official plaque on the outside even describes the place as a monster of concrete. Its as if the Lao people know its a bit of a balls-up, but they aren't scared of showing it. I suppose that attitude sort of encapsulates what everyone likes about Laos. For a tiny
Just Say No!
Funny billboard! fee the oppurtunity was available to walk to the top of the arch, so we did. As you climb up the stairs, it more resembles a multi-storey car park stairwell than that of a national monument. Admittedly the view from the top was good, and we had just as much fun visiting the monument as if it had been a real masterpiece.
Perhaps the highlight of our time in Vientiane came on the way to the Victory Monument. We saw on the map the national stadium of Laos was nearby, so we took a detour to have a look. Having done the same in Bangkok, we are now going to try and keep a 100% record with regards to seeing the national stadium of every country we visit. A sort of pilgrimage if you will! To our delight, upon arriving at the stadium, there was a match on. It made sense been as it was 4pm on a Saturday afternoon. We paid about 20p to enter and were treated to our first live sporting event of the trip. It was a youth game by the looks of it, but the referees were fully kitted out in official FIFA gear,
and the standard of football was not bad at all. (Maybe I should send a tape to Molineux?) The stadium itself had erm, I suppose what you would call character. A concrete oval that looked like it had survived more wars than football matches. For those of you interested in the score LAK beat Gemax 2-0, somewhat against the run of play.
After trapsing around for an hour trying to find a cash machine that worked (they all kept saying invalid card, or PIN etc, I was shocked to see the money had been taken from my account regardless, fortunately Nationwide have since sorted it out), we gave up, and settled down for the evening to watch Arsenal snatch a late draw from an unlucky Villa.
Thanks to an early start the next morning, I managed to secure us the last 2 seats on a bus to Bangkok for later in the day. We had decided that another day in Vientiane would be a day wasted, so were pleased we would be back in Bangkok the next morning.
We finally got the chance to ride one of the huge VIP buses we had seen all over Thailand. Painted to
look more like fairground rides than buses, they always looked good fun. The journey was comfortable enough, with the usual expected delays as we crossed over the border. (Our passports are looking full of stamps now, I hope they don't get full before the end of the trip).
So with the end of Vientiane, came the end of Laos. Having been there for 10 days, I can see very clearly how people could stay much longer. It is only the fact that we have got so much to do before getting to Singapore in April, that we didn't stay longer. But my apetite has certainly been whetted for future trips to the area. A great option that some people we met had done, was to fly into Hong Kong, and overland through China into S.E Asia via Laos. At some point, maybe after uni, an extended trip such as that (maybe still flying out of Singapore) is definately something I would consider.
Until next time. Sabadee (thats Lao!).
Tom.
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Ben Hingley
non-member comment
What a great trip you are having. The blogs are wonderful. So very graphic and amusing. So much better than many of the dreary ones I have read. Keep up the good work. Safe travelling.