so long vang vieng, hello... vientiane. laos. january 17th – 21st. 2009

So ready to be somewhere other then Vang Vieng. Not sure what to expect of Laos largest city (pop. 300,000). We arrive late afternoon, its almost Chinese New Year, and we (or should I say Stephen) end up joining the groups of other tourists in a scramble to find a room for the night. After what seems close to an hour later, Stephen returns to me and our packs with a smile on his face. The hotel isn’t too far away, and though we had thought we would move to another the next day, we wind up staying here the full time. Vientiane is small but spread out, the main area we are in the ‘tourist zone’, but it seems more laid back then the other tourist hotspots so far. Maybe it is infectious, because we spend most of our time here eating and wandering around. Our biggest ‘outing’ was the day we spent 4 hours (to & from, twice) walking to the Cambodian embassy to get our visas. Monks, the Mekong, crafts, markets, presidential inaugurations, food, food, food, it’s all a blur. Stumbling upon the Ho Phra Keo museum, taking endless photos of this amazing place. Sunny days, no objectives, surrounded by tourists, but somehow finding our own space. A good place to unwind, regroup and decide our next move. Our last night we splurge and go to Makphet, a tourist restaurant that is set up to teach street youth a trade. It teaches them to cook traditional Laos dishes, gourmet style. Kind of a catch 22 in that it is teaching them service industry skill to cater to the tourist industry, but right now, this is the direction Laos is headed, the initiative is trying to infuse that with traditional Laos culture. It is probably one of the best meals I have ever eaten. The space is sedate and calm, I feel like the people working there are truly happy that we enjoyed the meal so much. Like the rest of Loas so far, we sort of feel funneled from one tourist area to another, and outside of those settings, we have no opportunity to get a feel for Laos itself, but Vientiane let us have some time to ourselves and our walk to the embassy gave us a bit of a feel for the life that people live here. We had decided to give Laos a bit more opportunity and we make our way south to Pakse, by bus. Little did we know that it would on the ‘King of Buses’…

our vientiane photos on flickr

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