Capital of Laos - Vientiane

Trip Start Nov 21, 2007
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Trip End Oct 01, 2008


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Where I stayed
Riverside Hotel
(Vientiane hotels)

Flag of Lao Peoples Dem Rep  ,
Sunday, April 20, 2008

Vientaine is the capital of Laos with beaches along the Mekong River. We had about a day and half here to rejuvinate before a couple of days of basic and hard travel. We even had air conditioning in our room which we had not had for a while. So, we spent an afternoon getting caught up on blog entries, picture naming and movie watching...pretty hard life! We also found a TEX MEX retaurant that we just HAD to go to. Up until recently, we have not really craved too many foods from home, but we are now really missing chips and salsa. Tex Mex Alexia had pretty solid chips but the other items on the menu were a far cry from home. We knew it would be a big gamble and we were glad we at least got good chips! That night, we met our group to go bowling...what fun! Yes, Jana beat Layton 2 out of 3 games, but we both had the high score of 108!

The following day we had to go with Dean, our tour guide, to check on our Vietnamese visas as he was a bit nervous that ours were not going to work "bombie"
"bombie"
 . So, we hired bikes for the day. Jana's was a pretty pink bike with a pink basket and Layton's was black. We took off to the embassy. Guess what, sure enough in Mumbai they did not give us the correct visa... after about an hour, we had new visas with proper dates for only $30 bucks each, not too bad. What a relief!

The rest of the day was spent sweating away on our bikes. We visited Pha That Luang or "world precious stupa" which is a Laos national monument. Then, back down the hill to the Patuxai, the Vertical runway. The locals call it the Vertical runway because America donated cement to be used for a runway, but there were no planes in Laos so they didn't need a runway so the Laos people decided to build a war memorial with the donated supplies instead.

Then, we went to COPE, a non-profit organization who helps with rehabilitation of the victims effected by UXO's. UXO's are the "bombies" or bombs that did not detinate during the secret war that took place in Laos at the same time as the Vietnam war (or the American war as they call it here). 10 - 30% of the cluster bombs dropped did not explode which have been landmines for years after the war ended. The exhibit was very well done. You should visit the website at: www.copelaos.org. It is so weird to be tied to the violence. We really are hungry for more information and history to better understand the whole picture.

Of course, we had to fit some R&R into the day too. So, we both got massages at Mixay massage, spent some time online and cooled off after a day in the sun riding around on bikes. OH! We ate a place called Full Moon which had amazing smoothies and THE BEST cheeseburger!
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