Viva les Cakes in Vientiane
Trip Start
Nov 04, 2007
1
14
62
Trip End
May 03, 2008
Vientiane,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
We got to the bus station in Savannakhet early, hoping to get a VIP bus to the capital of Laos, Vientiane. A VIP bus in Laos generally means it is up to western standards (ie. no livestock, 1 person per seat, nothing/no-one in the aisle). Unfortunately there was no VIP bus today so we had to get the normal bus. We got our tickets and decided to get on the bus straight away to reserve our seats before going in search of refreshments for the journey. Boy are we glad we got our seats!! We found two seats right at the back of the bus - they were pretty much the last two seats together that were left. I was particularly grateful to get the middle seat at the back which meant I could stretch my legs out into the aisle. All these bus journeys have been playing havoc with mon derrier - so much so that I have very little feeling left on one cheek!
As it got closer to departure time the bus was really filling up
On the bus ..... Lao style!
. By this stage all the seats were occupied, so the bus steward brought out a load of plastic stools and lined them along the aisle for people to sit on. Obviously children weren't even worthy of plastic stools and had to either stand or sit on a parent's lap. Needless to say but there was livestock on board once again in the form of some chicks that chirped the whole way. There was also a really awful Thai film and a karaoke DVD (which we had seen on a previous journey). For us the journey was perfectly comfortable, although I don't know how the Lao people coped sitting on a hard plastic stool for 6 hours! We were stopped by the police for about 30 minutes just outside Vientiane. We have no idea why we were stopped, lots of cars behind us were also stopped. One policeman even got on the bus and counted how many passengers there were, although being double-capacity was clearly not a problem.So we arrived at Vientiane and got a tuk-tuk to our guesthouse. I even managed to haggle to get the price down a little (something that has been increasingly more difficult in Laos than it is in Thailand). Our guesthouse seems very nice and the people running it are very friendly. As we were shown to our room we were asked if we know Mr David Beckham.
We've had a wander around this afternoon, and from what we've seen so far Vientiane is a really smart city, and very french-esque. There are a ridiculous number of cafes, bistros and restaurants serving almost any type of food you can think of. It's a bit of a shame that there are so many "western" restaurants, so tonight we ate at the most Lao-like one we could find.
We shall probably stay here for 2 or 3 nights, there's plenty to keep us here for that long
Nam Phou Sqaure, Vientiane
. After which we shall continute heading north towards Luang Prabang.Ros:
Thought I should add a little more about Vientiane as we realised we wrote this entry so early on, we'd not really seen anything.
Vientiane is really a quite marvellous place to potter around. And as pottering is what we do best we were pretty happy there! We pottered around the quite marvellous Wats - Wat Sisaket was my favourite, a really old old place where they've stored all the Buddhas they've rescued from elsewhere. We thought the Wat beside the big national monument thingy (ohhhh can't remember the name....big gold thing) was quite funny though - we looked at it and though 'good grief, it's a disney-style Wat. Then found a sign on the gate that appeared to say it had been built with a donation from the USA. It was a working Wat though - the monks didn't seem to understand what we found so funny. We also pottered around lots of the little bakeries and cafes of all descriptions. We ate a lot of cake. Drank a lot of tea (the tea tastes NORMAL! Woo hoo and do a dance...)(or Lao coffee for Hugh) and wondered how many meals it was ok to have in a day. We pottered around the little boutiques and around the (very calm and orderly) market
Wat Sisaket, Vientiane
. Erm... oh, and had a Lao massage.Now as we had eaten a lot of cake and were generally feeling pretty decadent, we decided to splash out an have a massage at a posh spa. When we were waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for breakfast one morning in Pakse, we exchanged a few pleasantries with a French girl at the next table. One of which was that we just had to visit Papaya Spa in Vientiane. With hindsight, we are very grateful that the service in that restaurant was so bad, as without her recommendation we'd probably not have found Papaya, which turned out to be the nicest, most relaxing and beautiful spa you could ask for (especially after the dirt and dust of the city). We had a sauna and an hour's massage for about...6 pounds each...and it was lovely. With herbal tea, beautiful furnishings and nice music all set in a wonderful wooden house with a courtyard in the centre. In fact, I can't really describe how nice it was. Probably best if you just get on a plane and go there. Then go buy some cake from the Scandanavian Bakery and have dinner in 'Just for Fun' where they do something very exciting with lemon grass and basil and rice and a load of herbs and spices. And good cheesecake.
Except the spa has taught me that if I have a massage in future, I'm telling them in advance - language barrier or no - about my dislocating knees. Every time she went near my knees I got nervous. Can you imagine the poor girl's reaction if she'd pulled a kneecap out?! She seemed to find my double-jointed fingers wierd enough...
Where we're staying
Orchid Guesthouse: $16 a night for en-suite hot-water bathroom, air-con and TV. Perfectly clean and very friendly staff. Great location right on the river-front, with a great choice of places to eat nearby. Vientiane isn't the biggest of cities, but we're in a good location for walking around most of it.
Comments
Hi Guys!
Can't believe that you two are in Vientiane! Wow it seems like yesterday that we were there! Have you found the little French restaurant towards the river yet? Yummy food! I must have put on a stone at the Scandinavian Bakery whilst there, that place is lethal! Glad to see you are enjoying yourselves, savour every moment, Laos is amazing and you have Vietnam and Cambodia yet to come! Email us when you get to Vietnam, we know loads of top places!
Love
Lindsey and Ric
XXXXX
Sore fingers too!
As well as having sore bums from sitting on so many rickety buses, you must be getting sore fingers too from all the time spent in Internet cafes! Brilliant read, though you won't be on familiar territory to me for a long time yet!
Sandra