It always amuses me, when I go on trip abroad, to count the number of methods of transportation I use before arriving at my destination. On the way to Laos...
-walking from my apartment to the subway station, freezing in far-too-thin clothing intended for the destination temperature, not Sendai's current temperatures.
-subway to Sendai station
-night bus to Toyko; departure from Sendai at 11.30 pm, arrival near Shinjuku Station at 6.30 am.
-JR (Japan Railways) trains to Narita Airport. I've done this simply, quickly, and easily from Tokyo Station; from Shinjuku Station it was a two-hour and three-train mass of confusion. Note to self for future trips...
-plane from Tokyo to Bangkok.
-night bus from Bangkok to Nong Khai, on the border with Laos. Two night buses in two days: not recommended. Especially since the Thai version plays really, really loud TV until 10.30 pm.
-tuk-tuk to the actual border. We dismissed the tuk-tuk when he took us to a shady little office overcharging for visa applications.
-van across the border and to Vientiane, 20 kilometers away. The van left us to our own devices with the visa applications and offered to charge us less for the trip if we could convince an equally-confused French-speaking family to also pile into the van.
Once we got to Vientiane, we took advantage of the beautiful Sunday afternoon to wander up to Paxutai, the "Victory Gate" made of cement originally donated by the United States in order to build a new airport. A pricelessly translated plaque just inside the arches cheerfully admits that it's a "monster in concrete" but takes credit for the fact that the city's people enjoy the tree-lined square as a place to sit and talk and/or play soccer (depending upon age).
After admiring Paxutai, we repaired back to the hotel to freshen up... and promptly fell asleep. Again: two night buses in two days, not recommended. Just stretching out felt great; actually falling asleep was glorious.
Lonely Planet rather euphemistically describes Vientiane as "sleepy;" "silent" might be a better choice. A lot of travellers are disappointed and bored, and therefore wind up disliking it rather intensely -- but after four days there I started to feel like maybe they were missing the point. The charm and the appeal of Vientiane lies precisely in that sleepiness; it feels nothing like any other Southeast Asian city, and certainly nothing like a capital city. The whole place seems to have been plucked from the 19th century and deposited for our enjoyment into the 21st.
It is not as site-heavy as anywhere else, either, but it did provide some intriguing options:
~The Great Golden Stupa, or Pha That Luang -- which lives up to its name in that it is indeed very great, and very golden.
Interestingly, from afar it seems to be pure gold; only up close does one notice that it's really rather grubby.
It is always, however, shiny enough that in the direct sunlight it hurt my eyes too much to take off my sunglasses.
The stupa and the surrounding temples and palaces are still the centre of Lao Buddhism; the Grand Patriarch (I believe that is what he is called in English) still lives and worships here. We were there in the heat of the day [as an aside, throughout most of SE Asia, the locals sleep during the middle of the day and come out at night; I think they think tourists are batshit insane for doing it the other way around], so we met no monks. We did meet a large number of variously-disables beggars, children selling various souvenirs, and one very persistent old woman selling birds in wooden cages that I think (I hope) we were supposed to release for good luck.
~The Buddha Park. About 24 kilometers outside the city and thus necessitating a bus ride. Our driver apparently forgot that he had four foreigners on the bus and didn't bother to stop at the park; a Laotian guy helped us out by pointing out the window at the visible Buddhas and then translating our cries of "Please stop the bus!"
The park itself was built in the late 1950s by an eccentric monk/mystic who felt the need to collect every piece of Buddhist and Hindu sculpture he could get his hands on and stick them in a field with no order or explanations. It is a weird and eerie place.
~A history museum that was biased enough to rile me into pro-American feelings, or at least apologism, which made me feel very irritated with myself and also with the museum. When a country has as horrifying a story to tell as Laos does, they really don't need to tart it up. Said tarting ranged from uncomfortable religious-like shrines to various Communist leaders ["Here is the cup and spoon that So-and-so used during his valiant struggle against the imperialists"] to comparative displays that bordered on ridiculous ["Here is the machine gun that the American imperialists used to slaughter innocent civilians. And here is the piece of wood that valiant Lao soldiers used in their struggle."] I have never been to as unapologetically biased a place. But then, I have never been to as unapologetically nationalistic -- and Communist -- a place as Laos.
~French-inspired food. We ate so many baguettes... and so many pastries...
~Thai-inspired food. One night, we were talked into a dinner-theatre style all-you-can-eat meal and traditional dance performed by high-school-aged kids who sometimes had trouble keeping a straight face. The other three had their large tray of various supposedly-traditional-Lao food; I told the waiter that I was a vegetarian and acquired this:
It was very tasty. The dances were interesting, but somewhat lacked the sense of urgency that similar dances had in Cambodia, where the dancers were young because the Khmer Rouge slaughtered everyone involved in the traditional arts.
~The ability to eat on the edge of the Mekong River. As in Cambodia, the local officials are gentrifying the river's edge as a place for tourists and locals alike to walk and enjoy the view. In one area particularly, there is an impromptu market and a series of roofless, wall-less restaurants with limited menus of food cooked just upwind of the picnic-style seating.
~A single "colorful" street where the trip's ladyboy count went up to three, and we heard one card-playing Laotian telling another to "Fuck off fuck off!" in perfectly unaccented English.
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