Laos, Vientiane: Laos' Biggest Village

Our final long bus journey in Laos was from Luang Prabang to the capital city Vientiane. The bus journey was another exciting one filled with many twists and turns up steep mountain roads, and this time we were often driving above the clouds, as the mountains seemed to reach higher and higher throughout the journey. We upgraded our journey this time to an air-conditioned VIP bus (for just a few extra dollars) and it was well worth having more space and a little coolness throughout the journey. Little did we know, however, that as we climbed higher and higher in the mountains, that the bus driver would turn the a/c on a much lower setting since the bus struggled up the steep roads.

From reading our previous Laos journal entries, you will know that Laotians do not travel well on buses through the mountains. This journey was no exception, and we still witnessed them getting motion sickness. In fact, one poor older woman was so sick that she was hacking and dry-heaving for nearly the entire 8 hour journey. Our bus driver was another speedracer and once we felt as comfortable as possible with his insane driving, and felt sure that we were not going to drive off into the clouds below, we were able to take in the breathtaking scenery and to enjoy the ride. As the bus descended and we approached lower elevations, the heat started getting to us and by mid-afternoon we were sweltering, despite the a/c.

We were warmly greeted on the streets by everyone we passed, as they took time out of their daily routines to say Sabaidee

Our Lonely Planet guidebook warned us about the infamous Route 13 south of Luang Prabang, which is known as "bandit territory". Apparently, there have been previous attacks on buses on this road, and several people have been robbed and killed. Therefore, it was no surprise to us when a young man carrying a large rifle on his back boarded our bus in the small village Kasi, where Route 13 starts to get a little dangerous. He was nominated as our protector, but luckily our bus was not stopped by any rogue group of bandits and no shots were fired. Sitting at the front of the bus, we were literally on the edge of our seats for a couple of hours, being in full view of anyone standing in the road, including bandits we may come across. We decided that on future trips on Route 13, we would find seats a bit further back in the bus so that other people would be potential targets. Even though nothing went wrong for us, we did pass several groups of men and young boys in the street with machetes and guns strapped to their backs, but we imagined (and hoped!) that they were only farmers on their way to hunt for food.

Upon arriving in Vientiane, we noticed an immediate change from Luang Prabang, whereby no one was in our faces asking us to buy something from their roadside table or market stall. It was a relief being able to walk around the city at our leisure and enjoy the sights without anyone hassling us. The bus dropped us off at the bus station and we shared a tuk-tuk with many other passengers to the centre of town in order to find accommodation. It was much easier finding somewhere to stay this time, since Nati and Avishai were not with us, and therefore after 15 minutes walking around the city centre, we had booked ourselves into Thawee Guesthouse in a fan room with shared bathroom (and satellite TV!) for the bargain price of $6 per night. The people at Thawee Guesthouse were friendly-ish, and the man of the house was much chattier in the evenings when we could smell Lao whisky on his breath!

Vientiane, the capital city of Laos with a population of only a few hundred thousand, is known as Asia's "biggest village". Even though it may be considered as "busy" or "hectic" in comparison with the rest of the country, it is quiet compared with any other city in Asia. Vientiane, like all of Laos' major cities, is situated on the lifeline of the country, the Mekong River. Vientiane is the hub for all travel in the country and is a city full of surprises with fields of rice and vegetables hidden behind tree lined avenues, French Colonial architecture sitting next to gilded temples, freshly baked French bread served next to shops selling noodle soup and many other small treasures. There is little modern architecture in Vientiane and the city is trying to keep its charm by restoring many old French colonial houses as offices, restaurants and hotels. There are only a handful of modern buildings which sometimes looked remarkably out of place in this quiet capital.

One of the highlights from our time in Vientiane was definitely Xieng Khuan, or Buddha Park, which was located about 45 minutes by bus from Vientiane and was easy to get to from the main bus station. On the bus journey, we passed several villages and also the Laos-Thailand immigration control centre, where we saw many Laotians waiting eagerly to cross the Thai border to gamble and party, visiting many karaoke bars and discos - think of this as being similar to a trip to Amsterdam for a stag do (that's a "bachelor party" for the Americans reading this).

On the bus, we talked with a couple of Laotians who wanted to practice their English and we also met Koji, a Japanese guy from Nagoya who ended up spending the day with us. When we entered the park, we immediately felt like we were in the film The Chronicles of Narnia, as we found ourselves looking at something which resembled the White Queen's stone statue garden. When you look at the photos from this journal entry, you should understand exactly what we mean.

We spent around 45 minutes walking around Buddha Park, admiring the collection of different statues representing all of the Buddhist and Hindu gods. The place is like a small outdoor museum displaying many interesting statues including a very large 20 metre long reclining Buddha and an obscure three storey head which we were able to climb in and up to gain an excellent aerial view of all of the statues in the park. After walking through the park for awhile, we decided to have lunch and sat down in the park's cafe with Koji and the two Laotians we met on the bus. The food was cheap and cheerful and after hanging out for a while, we ventured back through the park to catch a bus back to Vientiane. The local bus journey back was the same as our journey there, and we enjoyed the 20km bumpy and dusty ride to Vientiane in a mini-bus filled with more people than seats.

Our next sight to visit that day was Patuxai monument, which is a grand arch and Laos' answer to Paris' Arc de Triomphe. There is a funny story behind the creation of this monument. The U.S. donated a large sum of money and cement to Laos in the late 1960's so that Laos could build a new airport, but the then-communist Laotians decided to use the funds and cement to build a fancy arch instead. We only hope that this decision on the Laotians' part was not the cause for Laos to be the most heavily bombed country in the Vietnam War a few years later! Koji joined us on our walk to Patuxai and we strolled along one of Vientiane's "boulevards" (we love the fact that the capital has kept some of its French influence and has streets with the names "boulevard", "rue" and "avenue") to reach the monument to admire it from below.

There wasn't enough time to climb to the top of Patuxai and therefore we walked further north in order to visit That Luang (not this Luang, haha). On the grounds of That Luang, there was a beautiful temple and large golden stupa which is a treasured symbol in Laos. The symbol can be seen on Laotian currency among many other things, and seeing the amazing structure whilst the sun was setting in the distance made us understand why the sight is treasured. All three of us agreed that the sunset in Vientiane that evening presented us with the largest sun we had ever seen, and the sky turned an amazing shade of red as the sun dropped lower and lower.

Moving on, we wanted to head towards a shopping centre which we were told about and was supposed to have had a cinema inside. As we left the area of That Luang, we found ourselves in the heart of the Laotians' Vientiane, or where locals seem to live, work and trade goods. We didn't see a single westerner for the next couple of hours and we were warmly greeted on the streets by everyone we passed, as they took time out of their daily routines to say "sabaidee" (translates to "hello") with large smiles on their faces.

We finally reached the shopping centre and found out that is was no more than a small supermarket attached to a bowling alley, bar, couple of food stalls and a cinema. The cinema was a huge let-down as the only films showing on the two small screens were Thai films with no English subtitles. We were really hoping that the film "300" might be on as we were gutted to have just missed that film in Chiang Mai, Thailand, before we left (see our Chiang Mai journal entry if you haven't read that story). Bowling would have been good had we not walked over four hours around the city beforehand. We decided to get some cold drinks from the supermarket and, after a brief rest, we flagged a tuk-tuk down in the street and headed back to the city centre to call it a night.

Other sights we saw in Vientiane during our remaining time there included an outdoor aerobics class in an open-air pavilion along the Mekong River. We don't know if it was funnier watching the tourists try to join in the aerobics, or whether it was funnier watching the Laotians give it their all during the exercise routines. Apart from the aerobics and sights we saw the previous day, there was just the presidential palace and a few other temples to visit. We had plenty of time and therefore enjoyed strolling lazily through the streets visiting everything. Kyle also enjoyed a back, neck and shoulder massage for £4, or $7, for 1 hour and 15 minutes of working out all of the kinks from the Lao bus journeys experienced to date.

Food was generally good in Vientiane but we had some appalling Mexican food at Alexia's Mexican Cafe in the centre of town. We highly suggest people avoid this place if you are looking for an alternative food to Laotian food. Laotian food in Vientiane was good, and we also stumbled across a cool and trendy little fast-food Indian place called Rashmi's which served northern and southern Indian food and which we both thought would be hugely successful as a concept in London.

Vientiane was our last stop in Laos and whilst we were sad to leave the beautiful and friendly country, we were very excited to move into our next new country, Cambodia. We had previously booked flights to Siem Reap from Vientiane, as we read that it was much easier getting an entrance visa upon arrival in the airport; also, we wanted to save time and we chose not to travel further south in Laos to the Cambodia border. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:15am which meant a 5:00am check-in time that in turn meant a 4:30am tuk-tuk ride to the airport. We therefore set our wristwatch alarm clocks for a 4:00am early start. We hope that none of you keeping up with our travels thinks that all this travelling is some glam affair, as it is actually a lot of hard work, probably much harder than it is for you to read these journals! Seriously, though, we have got to work on reducing our early starts...