Cosmopolitan Laos
Trip Start
Feb 05, 2008
1
26
70
Trip End
Ongoing
Vientiane,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Saturday, March 29, 2008
We booked our room in advance so no messing around. The trip was an easy three hours in a comfortable mini-van. We arrived in downtown Vientiane at a little after noon. Our guesthouse was only about four blocks away. Immediately I like this town. It is Laos' biggest city and with a population of only just over 200,000, it has a an easy pace to match. Everyone is friendly and the locals and tourists mix easily. It is clean and has a real cosmo feel too. This, together with the sight of people jogging provides quite a stark contrast from the hill-tribe village life I'd experienced only a few days earlier. There's good food all around.
I tell the first tuk-tuk driver we meet that we don't need a tuk-tuk. 'Tuk-tuk needs you' was his reply, with a big smile. Another one is 'Tuk-tuk marijuana' in one breath.
We spend our first day getting oriented. There are a number of open air restos along the Mekong with cushions and bamboo mats for chilling. We spot one with some freshly bbq'd pork ribs and cold beerlaos and settle in for the rest of the afternoon. From here you can see the sun set over Thailand and the Mekong. Never get tired of sunsets.
Day two is siteseeing day. Vanessa and I share a similar travel style: see a site, get a coffee, see another site, get an ice coffee, see some more, get a beer, etc. Laos was once a french colony and probably the most interesting site is the faux Arc de Triumph, 'Patuxai', that was built in 1969 from cement donated by the americans for the construction of a new airport (while they were bombing Laos?). The sign at the site says it was built in 1962 and makes no mention of a donation by americans. Another great spot is the Lao National History Museum where we learned the truth about the history of Laos and how they kicked american ass in the war. One display features three rifles used by americans to 'murder' laos people and pistol used by laos officers to protect themselves from the 'U.S.
Around Vientiane
imperialists and their puppets'. It's hot here. High 30's every day. We hit one of the many chill bars on the river every day at around 3 or so for a cool drink and a snack, usually Laos style fried spring rolls which are different and arguably better than the Thai style rolls . Peddlars walk through occasionally, the best one selling a massage, vibrator-like instrument and after being told no to it, he produces some chinese blue pills shaped like Viagra. Some bring little metal pails with hot coals inside, offering to grill dried squid or fish. I asked one of the proprietors how to say 'music' in Laos and he started singing 'Hotel California', and then said, 'Falang, hotel california...'
Gettting money isn't the easiest thing. One day I had to try four atm's before finding one that would work. The maximum withdrawal is 700,000 Kip, about 80 bucks. I figured I needed about four times that to get me through the south. I think the maximum number of withdrawals is four in a day but after the third withdrawal, it mades sounds like it was going to spit out some cash and none came out. Now it was off to the internet to email my bank. Ah Laos.
We tried to eat at a full-on local joint one night, no english menu, no falang, but jammed out when we looked at the food on the tables around us, not that we aren't interested in a little culinary adventure. This was just a little too far out there. On the way out some guys who claim to work for the Finance department roped us in for a beer. Their english was decent. They were schooled in Warsaw Poland and when I asked one of them why Poland, he would only plug his ears and say 'I don't want to hear it'. F-u-n-n-y. They were a bit drunk and we were hungry so we dashed out in search of another spot as quickly as we could.
We also ran into Jen and Andrew, a couple we met in Vang Vieng. Jen is from Portland, Andrew from Newcastle. They were heading to BEATZ on the beach so we joined them. The evening featured some hip-hop and break dancing and a rapper from Canada! The four beerlaos for the price of three prevented me from remembering his name. BEATZ was slightly on the lame side but yet another cool Laos experience.
The next evening we would catch our overnight express bus to Pakse, a luxury double decker coach costing around 21 dollars. A sawngthaew picks us up at our g/h at around 8:00 p.m. We pull in front of another guesthouse to pick up the last passenger and BANG a motorbike carrying two young helmetless fellows slams into the right rear corner of our sawngthaew, knocking the two guys flying and sending plastic shrapnell all over the place. The passenger gets up and staggers around. The driver tries frantically to start his bike so he can chase the other motorbike who squeezed him our way, but to no avail. Funny, the whole time we were here, we hadn't seen a cop and suddenly five of them had descended on the scene. They must be hiding, watching all the time. Anyway, after a brief investigation, we are running late, and the tail-light on our truck is smashed. I'm guessin' ordinarily the Laos cops who are normally hiding in the woodwork, don't much get worked up about a smashed tail-light, unless you're carrying a load of falang. So we get stopped two more times on the way to the bus terminal, which is about as far out of town as most airports. We make it to our bus with about five minutes to spare.
I'm going to miss Vientiane. Off to Tadlo and the south. .
Around Vientiane
