Tour of the city
Trip Start
Jul 12, 2006
1
188
230
Trip End
Jun 18, 2007
Vientiene, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Friday, April 6, 2007
We grabbed some breakfast at a local cafe. Lao was a French colony once and one good thing that's been left behing are baguettes. Lao people have lovely, fresh baguettes for breakfast, normally with pate but I settled for a cheese baguette and was midly amused to find out that this was basically a baguette with a DairyLee cheese triangle - :)
After breakfast, we rented out some bicycles from the guest house opposite our accom for $1 for the whole day, bargain! And they were in quite good condition too, complete with little baskets at the front, only you're not meant to put anything valuable in them incase someone drives by and nicks it. There's not too much traffic in Laos which makes cycling quite easy although on the other side of the coin, not many people pay attention to any road rules whatsoever so it's a bit hairy sometimes.
We decided to follow the LP walking tour but cycled and did it backwards instead. We went past lots of temples, the presendential palace, lots of embassies, the American Embassy (which is huge for some reason), a few Buddists monuments, one of which is spectacular and the most important national monument in Laos, Pha That Luang. It's huge, very pointy, golden and sparkles in the sun for miles. We also went up the Laos version of the arc de triomph, called Patuxai, it looks a little bit like the French one and from the top you can see the road approaching it which is said to be the Laos version on the Champs elysee. It cost 3,000 kip each to get to the top but it was worth it for the view you get. I was surprised to find souvineers shops inside on the different levels as you walked to the top. I don't know why but it just seemed a bit weird I suppose.
We parked up and visited the market as well, which was great to see. It's huge, full of almost makeshift stalls and has these undercovered bits where you could get lost for days. The walkways made up of cardboard and a few battered wooden plants. The market was completly unlike the ones in Thailand, aimed at Lao people rather than tourists, I think we were the only Farangs in there at one point. It was really interesting to see though. People just sell everything and anything, but lots of textiles.
Traders also sell lots of things on the street, a bit like Thailand but not as much, everything is a bit more simplistic here, we've cycled past huge wooden carts full of fruit and veg, manned by a single lady in a sun hat or a Lao man sleeping in a hammock strung up between two trees nearby. Carts full of jars containing differently coloured liquids, which were actually drinks that they spoon into a plastic bag with some ice and hand over to the customer with a straw to drink.
Just outside the post office we saw a few women sitting on the floor outside, under the trees and in front of them were bags of the most weird and wonderful stuff. Plastic bags, rolled down to show their contents, almost like a bag of sweets. They contained different herbs and spices and other funny stuff, they had bottles full of some sort of homemade liquid, probably Lao whisky we guessed, fruits, plants - all sorts!
We did loads of cycling today and while we had the bikes we decided to head out of town to the LP's recommended restuarant, stating it served the best Lao food. It was a bit of a mission to get too because there aren't many street names and the map in the lonely planet is a bit out of date, but we made it everntually. After a few near misses and a few complaints from me about cycling in the hot hot sun. But we found it and that's the main thing. Again, we were the only farangs in there. We decided to go with the traditional Laos food, so we ordered roast pork, bamboo soup, papaya salad, sticky rice and white mushrooms with veg. all of which were delicious. The bamboo soup was a bit odd, more of a green mulchy substance with a weird earthy taste. It was worth the effort in the end and after a few jugs of Beer Lao the cycle home was much easier.
Tomorrow we head off to Vang Vieng, we've booked the 2pm VIP bus from our guest house, which should be interesting. We've heard lots of stories about Lao bus travelling! :)
