So THAT'S where the leftover prom dresses circa 2001 went...

Very reluctantly, we left our tubes and our ultimate chilled out days behind and headed for the "capital"of Laos, Vientiane. Now this city actually is the capital of the country, but I used quotes here because this is, by a large margin, the quietest capital city on earth. With just 600,000 people in a fairly spread out area, we arrived in Vientiane and it felt like the Laos version of, say, downtown Oakville. On a very quiet day. Alas, with a little imagination, a Lonely Planet guide, and some much needed hours of sleeping in (on horrible beds with the springs sticking out! You get what you pay for for $8/night!) we found ways to occupy ourselves for a few days. On the first night we went out for surprisingly good French food (Laos was occupied by the French) and just wandered around. On Friday, we went to the "market", which was actually an insane cluster of make shift stalls and stores crammed into a 3 level shopping plaza. I have never, in all the China Towns if been to, seen such a bizarre collection of utterly unrelated and useless things under one roof. You could buy anything from clothes, to keyboards, to prom shoes, to smelly dried meat, but absolutely nothing was in any type of order and it was all at least 3 years old (including the meat, most likely!). It was truly a local market as we were the only white folk as far as the eye could see. We even caught 3 monks checking out the action! (see the orange robes on the second level.) We finished our walk around town at the Laos version of the Arc de Triomphe... not Paris, but nice!
Despite the city being quiet, we still figured that Friday night would see some locals out having some fun. We had dinner on the plastic chairs that are set up every night along the romantic muddy Mekong River bank. You walk along the mud bank, find a local food stall you like, and order! The guy who brought us our food was so cute and shy. I think he was shocked to see two girls eat so much food. Our hearts broke for this cute doggy that followed us to our table. We fed her some of our bbq fish and she followed us around all night!
After dinner, we busted out the Lonely planet once again and tried to find a bar for a few drinks. What ended up happening was us walking down a nearly deserted street, with no partiers in sight. Even this hilarious sidewalk liquor shack was abandoned! On our way back, we found the German guy we were tubing with a few days ago sitting alone on a corner (we think he was stood up by a local girl..) and went with him to the only place in town that had people and booze in it. We had a few Beerlaos and looked out over the river at Thailand (the faint lights behind us in the photo).
On our final day we took a public bus, aka a 30 year old mini bus run by a local family with the "bus number" painted on a sign in the window to Buddha Park. the 45 minute ride there was hilarious. The door was open the entire time and we saw a guy just jump out at his stop without the bus even slowing down! We took the "dancing roads" (potholes everywhere and no paving) at top speed.. hence the blurry pic. Note the door ajar. Buddha Park was quite interesting. A religious fanatic commissioned tons of sculptures from amateur artists, with no common Buddhist theme, and just randomly placed them around this small park! While I was climbing one of the "temples" to take a photo, Mars was approached by 2 monks (and their guide) who come to the park often to practice their English with tourists (there they are in front of the Reclining Buddha). I think you can see her talking to them in the photo of the park. The one monk practiced English words like expiration and emergency room (I think this session was brought to us by the letter E!) with Mars, while the other one walked with me and asked about my time in Laos and Canada. HE seemed surprised to learn that Canada does not have many monks walking around. We waited by the side of the road for our return "bus"... this time the same type of rickety minivan. Our drive home was twice as long as the way there, as we stopped for: 1) the driver to get a beer, 2) a load of soft drink cartons to be piled into every available space, 3) the various basket ladies who had finished their day selling keys/umbrellas/super glue, 4) a tropical storm... in which the windows and doors still didn't close properly! We definitely got our entertainment value from our $1 return fair!
Overall we had a great time in Laos, but weren't too sad to leave sleepy Vientiane. Especially since we were headed back to Cambodia, which we loved...


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