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Other entries in Vientiane

Route 13, Part I

Route 13 runs all the way to the south of Laos from Louang Prabang through Vang Vieng and Vientiane. Like most other travellers, I followed that road, making my way to Vientiane by way of Vang Vieng.

The latter is apparently also called "ban falang" (foreigners' town). Everyone who visits the two main cities of Vientiane and Louang Phrabang stops there to watch the amazing scenery, have fun and relax.
With my "slowboat-friends" (yep, everyone is on the same route) I went tubing, ie we floated down the river on tractor inner tubes. That was a fun afternoon. The river is really slow so we spent several hours on it, not to forget all the stops at the refreshment stalls set up along the river. They're strategically positioned so that the current takes you there whether you like it or not. This is just one of the activities they have there for tourists, the place definitely lives off tourism. The main road seemed to be a mix between Khao San Rd in Bangkok and my beach holiday in Thailand. It's known as "movie road" and is lined with Ko Lanta-style cafes showing Khao San-style DVDs (or all seasons of the "Friends" series in an endless loop) all day, some of them selling "happy pizza" (or happy garlic bread, apparently happy anything if you ask for it).
But nothing they build there can disturb the amazing surrounding mountains. Like in Muang Ngoi in the north, they are karst formations, but seem even mightier because there is a long row of them which can be seen from anywhere in town. Vang Vieng is on one bank of the river, then there are some plains and abruptly, the towering chain of rocks starts.

On to Vientiane, the capital, where I finally lost sight of most people I met in Louang Phrabang (makes a nice change). I agreed with the people I talked to that Christmas need not be special at any rate and it wouldn't matter if it wasn't the most beautiful or most exciting day of our trips, but I still had a pleasant day in Vientiane. The city is modern and not as stunning as Louang Prabang, but Wat Sisaket beats my favourite Louang Phrabang temple on my mental "best of" list in the "most beautiful temple" category. It's just another old temple, but full of lovely murals inside and surrounded by a cloister-type structure with a huge collection of Buddha statues, large and small. The courtyard in between has a calm and peaceful feel about it and the cloister sheltering the temple are as old as the sanctuary (at least they look similar), so the compound (set in a pretty garden) is more of an entity than any other temple I've seen.
In Vientiane it's apparent that this is a country run by communists, the red communist flag can be seen nearly as often as the Lao one. The national museum was full of pictures of Comrade Kaysone and the 4th and 5th and 6th central committee etc. It also had artefacts from other periods of the bloody, complicated but highly interesting history of Laos, unfortunately without proper English labels. One good thing that might come out of globalisation could be well-presented museums all over the world??
Apart from communism, you also have the French legacy (some concrete monument supposed to resemble the Paris arc de triomphe) and (weirder than all the temples if they were serious about communism) the national symbol, a massive gold-coloured religious structure originally built by one of the early kings.
I didn't pay too much attention to the tinsel decorations, they seem out of place in a country like this, but I did take Christmas as an excuse to try some of the excellent bakeries in town (there's crispy baguettes, chocolate croissants, crepes - I love the French - and even bagels, cream cheese and imported German bread).

Tonight I'm going on the only night bus ride that exists in this country, down to the south along Route 13. Other routes are probably too dangerous for a night service, with bad roads winding through the mountains. I'm glad if tonight's trip isn't like that, I was feeling a bit shaky after the previous curvy bus journeys.