Lao - Vientiane

Our last entry ended with our intended bustrip to Vientiane, 'apparently one of the most scenic in South EastAsia'. We can now say this is true, the road winds itself up and down mountains, never more than a few meters away from the edge. Providing amazing views over an area which is still largely unaffected by tourism, while sometimes passing through little villages of ethnic Laos, giving a fleeting insight into their lifestyles.
However, at the same time, the fact that this is one of the (or perhaps THE) main arteries of Laos does not mean the road is smooth, it is covered with potholes, in places nothing more than a dirt-track, with just enough space for one-and-a-half cars to pass each other. All in all, ten hours of bus-trip which made a big impact (on our minds and our bums!).

Once in Vientiane we made our way to the guest house we had booked. The first thing that is obvious about Vientiane is that it may be a capital, but it looks and feels like a sleepy village in the province - no high-rising buildings, only three main roads and a lot less traffic than any of the other big(ger) cities in Thailand we visited. The second thing that is striking is the presence of numerous aid institutions - UNICEF, UN World Food Programme, Red Cross (Denmark, Netherlands, etc.), Action contra le Faim, World Health Organisation - you name it, they all have locations in Vientiane, plus initiatives from individual countries, such as Japan, Australia, France and Germany. Which is also reflected in the relatively large number of western restaurants and coffee shops around town. For both of us this is the first time we have been in a city where the presence of all of these non-governmental aid organisations is so visible.

As Vientiane is very small, we spent our days here discovering it at our leisure. The centre is filled with wats (temples, what else in Laos ?), government buildings (including the presidential palace) and embassies and headquarters of the various NGO's. Plus a hilarious attempt to copy the Champs Elysees, including the Arc de Triomphe (as said in previous entries, Laos once was a French colony, which is now not only evidenced by the love for baguettes but also for big streets and monuments). The outskirts, which we explored by bike, are filled with more temples, more embassies and residential areas, ranging from small huts for the locals to lavish villas for the ex-pats. The fact that two westerners on bikes cycled through their area led many locals to look bemused - obviously they are going by the assumption that if you can afford to drive a car or rent a tuk-tuk, why would you cycle ? Which assumption we started to share after four hours of bum-numbing road experience (if their main road is filled with potholes, try to imagine what their less important roads look like, and then try to imagine covering these on old bikes with saddles as comfortable as a slab of stone).

The evenings in Vientiane we spent looking at the sun setting over the Mekong (on the opposite bank is Thailand), having dinner - including a lovely sukiyaki (some sort of soup-fondue) and a very, very spicy papaya-salad (the waiter misunderstood our question if it was spicy for an encouragement to be extra generous with the chilies, a misunderstanding we are both regretting now - no need to explain we hope....), reading our books and training our brains on the Nintendo (for the people into this type of thing - our brain ages are now 21 and 25 years - up to you to decide whose is whose....).

In a few hours we will leave for Vietnam - Hanoi. Because we wanted to stay a bit longer in Laos, we have had to cut short our time in Vietnam. So, in total we will be just over a week in Vietnam. What we will be doing here is also dependent on if and how we can get to Cambodia for a reasonable price (and in reasonable time - the Lao experience has made us somewhat reluctant to do a bus journey of thirty hours or so.....).

When we set off for Laos we did not know what to expect. Now we have experienced it, we are glad we did it. We have seen some of the most impressive things of our trip so far (the monks getting their alms in Luang Prabang, the sun setting over the Mekong in Vientiane, the mountains between LP and Vientiane). Also, tourism, especially outside LP, is not such a big thing yet, so there is the chance to really experience the interaction with people still (as evidenced by our chat with a monk outside LP). On the other hand, where tourists are more common, there is often an assumption by some of the Lao people that they have the right to get money from tourists, leading to, sometimes annoying, begging. But this is probably part of the transition a poor country has to go through.

Therefore, a remarkable experience in a country that is likely to change dramatically in the next few years, when it will become a more general tourist destination. Hopefully we will have the chance to come back to see the difference and see some of the parts that we haven't seen this time......