Last stop in Laos

Trip Start May 08, 2008
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Trip End Ongoing


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Where I stayed
New Laos Paris Hotel
(Vientiane hotels)

Flag of Lao Peoples Dem Rep  ,
Tuesday, July 15, 2008

We quite stupidly ignored Sam and Djura's advice that finding accommodation in the city was difficult but there you go, we had to see for ourselves that it was tough. There were only real dirt holes or single rooms in most places and in the end the only place that was bearable cost a lot more than we'd intended on paying. The room itself was lovely but the only problem was that, as is very common for Asia, the bathroom was pretty squalid. We've stayed in places with really ordinary rooms and lovely bathrooms and in this case the opposite. It's a little strange. The fact that the shower here didn't actually work was more annoying. Actually the fact that I had lathered up when the water stopped was worse!
 
Anyway the city itself seemed enormously overrated to us. It's a nice place and seems to be mellow alright but we'd heard a bit of hype about it that didn't seem justified. We spent a few days going around to various temples and chilling out ourselves before booking a flight back to Thailand. Some of the temples are excellent and sitting by the river was a nice way to pass some time at the end of the day. We hired bikes on a couple of days here and took some nice little trips around the place. One trip to the Australian Embassy was a total waste of time, as it was closed for lunch when we arrived, and when we returned a very polite girl very politely told us that she didn't know anything about visa applications. So we did the online application instead and here's hoping that the process is a lot quicker than the 4-5 weeks advised. We need a chest xray for some reason so once back in Thailand we'll get that and hope it doesn't delay things.
 
It was great here to also arrange dinner with Sam and Djura (their last night in Laos) and Charlie and Jess (just arrived in the city) on one of our nights here. It had been good fun hanging with them since Phonsavan so great to have a last hang out. Most places in the city close early so to extend the party by a little while we decided to go bowling, with sometimes hilarious results. Charlie picked up the wins in both game we played. My inability to put two good turns back to back cost me in game two!

We did take in some of the sights such as they were including the beautiful golden chedi you see in some of our pictures, called Phra That Luang, which is the symbol of Laos and features on all their banknotes.

Farewell to Laos so, another place we'd like to return to, specifically to the south of the country. It's a country where more time is needed than you might expect, mostly due to the deplorable state of the roads. 100km can take over 2 hours at times, but that's all part of the fun.
 
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