Vientiane

Days 77-80

We arrived this morning (Sun 11^th Nov) in Luang Prabang in north central Laos from Vientiane, which didn’t prove worthy enough of a 2 night stay. As predicted our journey from Siem Reap to Vientiane proved to be extremely difficult and our efforts to make the trip in one day proved to be in vain.

Our route to Laos from Siem Reap involved retracing our steps through the grungy little border town of Poipet, from there it was onto Khorat, Thailand’s second city where we would catch a bus to the Laos border. Here we would meet up with the Mekong once again and cross to on our way to Vientiane, the capital of Laos . To try and get a jump start on our journey we hired a taxi at 6.30am Thursday (8^thNov) morning from Siem Reap. However our start wasn’t early enough, our driver wasn’t fast enough and we missed the 9.00am bus to Khorat. No problem, there was a noon bus so just a 2 hour wait. The noon bus arrived and as we prepared to board word filtered out to us that the bus was going nowhere until 3.00pm. Although the rest of the passengers seemed indifferent to the news, we were dejected. A five hour wait would mean the chances of getting to Laos before the day was out impossible, and frustratingly rendering our taxi fare and early start pointless. It didn’t end there though, when it was closing in to 3 o’clock I noticed my right arm and leg sun burnt despite the fact I had been sitting in the shade all day. Turns out the reflection from the bus that should have motoring us to Khorat was reflecting UV waves my direction! I have been extremely careful with sunburn on this trip because my transparent skin will burn very easily in the tropical sun and this annoyed me, how could I forsee being burnt in the shade by the very thing that should have been protecting me? Could this journey get any worse?

Thankfully it didn’t and the bus to Khorat was off at 3pm and despite a traffic jam along the way we got there unscathed at least. Once we arrived in Khorat it was apparent that our luck had completed a U-Turn, as it turned out we could catch a night bus to the Laos border. The bus was fantastic and although we didn’t have seats together we had full reclining seats so we both slept soundly the whole way to the border, saving us the cost of accommodation for the night to boot.

We were at the border for 6am Friday (9^th Nov) morning and were duly punished for arriving too early with a $1 overtime fee for the Lao visa. $1 is no big deal and as we hadn’t fully researched the visa price we were at the mercy of the price quoted from the official. The conductor of the bus that took us from the border to Vientiane decided that he was also entitled to an overtime fee, even after our price had been agreed at 100bhat. Backed up by a French couple behind us we told him a firm no and waited to see what happened. Nothing as it turned out, it would appear the conductor was chancing his arm at a bit of pocket money!

My knowledge on Laos is fairly scant. I know that it is often quoted as one of the poorest countries in the world. It has a small devoutly Buddhist population who live a mainly rural and subsistence lifestyle. I was also aware that there are many different ethnic groups who associate more with each other than the country itself. Its history also records it as one of the most bombed countries in the world during the Vietnam War. So as we entered Vientiane I was preparing myself for a huge disparity in the development level from Thailand, boy was I in for a surprise.

At 200 000 inhabitants it is very small city but not at all bustling like a typical Asian city or at all ramshackle like you would associate with its GDP level . Vientiane has wide clean streets with brand new twin cab pick-ups roaring down them.  There are new hotels, stylish coffee shops, squeaky clean government buildings and a newly developed waterfront area on the banks of the Mekong. Strangely, it actually doesn’t feel unlike suburban Southern California.

It’s all very nice but the problem is, it is all a bit boring, there is nothing to really do here. There are a few temples but nothing I could really highly recommend. The other problem of course is the stifling heat. The oppressive humidity from further south is gone but during the day the sun beats down with such strength and intensity that anywhere out of the shade around midday is a no-go area for me, especially with my previous day burning.

What Vientiane does have though and just around the corner from our hotel as it turns out, is a bowling alley. So like just like Walter and the Dude, when there is nothing else to do to but escape the heat and waste away a few hours my special lady friend and I said “***k it, let’s go bowling”. And bowl we did, althought I am not sure that Walter would have approved of the flag in our lane. It ended honours even, my special lady friend game greatly improved under my guidance when she defeated me in the second game. Then, what seemed like an entire year group of school girls from Vientiane International School invaded the empty alley and we had to beat a hasty retreat. It seems that the heat in Vientiane is too much for even the local’s Physical Education class.

We did a small amount of sightseeing on Saturday (10^th Nov) but the main temples in the centre of town, Wat Si Saket and Haw Pha Kaew actually close at 4.00pm just when it is starting to cool off so we only got to walk around their grounds. The main temple in Vientiane is called Pha That Luang, but we didn’t visit it as we weren’t blown away by the reviews and it was far too hot to cycle or walk there anyway.

 We discoverd something from our sightseeing though. With the increase in Buddhists in Northern Ireland it has left people wondering what side of the political divide they lie. Well with all the orange around I was already suspect but we saw this image of the Buddha which removes all doubt! So there you have it, I bet those hands were even painted red at one time!

 The nights do cool off, but it appears that Vientiane is also infested with bedbugs. Yes those dreaded little nasties again! There were a couple of girls from Co Down in our hotel who got badly bitten, we escaped with only a few bites this time around. Apparently it is a city wide problem so its hard to blame the hotel owners and they were taking the mattress out when we checked out the next morning.

With one night under our belt we decided it would be enough and we caught the night bus to Luang Prabang directly North from Vientiane. Unfortunately as it was dark we couldn’t see the landscape, but in consolation once again the bus offset the price of a night’s accommodation. The landscape around the town of Vang Vieng is supposed to be particularly beautiful with Karst cliffs dissected with winding rivers. But the town has become famous for another reason; “Inner-tubing”.  

Inner-tubing involves sitting in a tractor tyre inner tube and floating down a river. Vang Vieng decided to start adding bars along the tubing route, so you could float down the river and sip a few beers along the way. Sounds a nice way to spend the day but as it got popular the bars started to up their game adding rave music, pole dancers, a few locals decided to satisfy the tourist’s demand for marijuana and next came crystal meth. As you can imagine soon enough it was completely out of control and 22 tourists drowned last year. The local authorities had to act and when shooting the drug dealers didn’t work they closed down the bars on the tubing route a few months back. As a result the party going backpackers have deserted it, but I am sure that given a few years a more sustainable tourism will reappear.

On a related point we also met a woman yesterday who said you can volunteer at the Full Moon party in Koh Pha-Ngan with the purpose of helping the young tourists who have consumed too much of whatever they were consuming that night. This volunteering involves finding party goers sprawled senseless, putting them in a cage, and then feeding and releasing them in the morning. The amount of fights and rapes at the Full Moon party actually make this a necessity, but there are more worthwhile volunteering projects that should be receiving help in SE Asia. Also I am quite sure it is not the way that the parents’ of these inebriated youths thought that they’re money was being spent when the apple of their eye said they wanted “to go and see the world”.

Last night’s bus had fully reclining seats were you actually could lie flat, although ours were a little close together. They worked perfectly for me and I slept soundly, not so for my wife and she now is catching 40 winks while I write this post. There was also an interesting sign on the toilet that my wife was glad to see as she was sitting right next to it, see the photo below. Luang Prabang is thankfully much cooler than Vientiane and we intend to spend a few nights here recuperating from our nights on the road before making the push over the Tonkinese Alps and into Vietnam.

With virtually the main core of Ireland’s rugby team decimated for their match against South Africa, I wasn’t holding out much hope for a win yesterday evening. But from the report it seems that they performed well and perhaps could have beaten the Springboks. Still though, a lot of our big name players are getting on a bit and aren’t going to be around forever so the younger guys will have to step it up from now on. Also wondering why if the match was in Dublin, why were Ireland in a changed strip?