Day 65 (03/06/08): Vientiane, Laos
And so it came to be my last day in Vang Vieng. The whole Gibbon crew was leaving today, and so once again our loyal group of Gibboner's got further fragmented. Simone was heading off to Bangkok and Lucy was going north to Hanoi in Vietnam. The remaining 4 of us, myself, Garth, Lou & Charlie were all heading to the south of Laos, and had booked the same bus to the capital of
Vientiane.
Our little group had breakfast together, in the same place we always have breakfast. Even though we had all been tubing many many times, we all still felt a pang of jealousy as we watched as the 'tubers' for the day gathered their tubes, jumped into tuk-tuks and prepared themselves for a day of great fun. We lamented the breaking up of our group and reminicsed about how good a time we all had together. Even the owner of our guesthouse, who had come tubing with us a few times, was sad to see us go.
At 1pm we climbed aboard our minibus, and it was with some sadness that we said goodbye to our home for the past 13 days. We will all remember it with great joy and it will hold many happy memories for us. However, amongst all the melancholy, was also the deep down excitement of travelling. We would be going to new places, to discover new things and experience new adventures, and as much fun as Vang Vieng was, moving on to new places is also always fun.
The minibus ride only took just over three hours, and I actually managed to sleep for parts of it. The south of Laos is considerably flatter than the mountainous north, and as such the roads got smoother and less windy the further south we got. We arrived in Vientiane in the late afternoon. Vientiane is the capital city of Laos, although it is actually rather small, with a population of only 200 000. Everyone I have met, and even all the guidebooks say that there isn't really a lot to do in the city, and to spend as little time there as possible. The original plan was to use the time to get a Cambodian visa, but luckily the guesthouse we stayed in can organise it for you overnight, so that made things easy. We are staying close to the Mekong River, and across from it you can see Thailand. Dotted along the river are a number of small little restaurants/street stalls, where I had dinner with Garth, and an Irish guy who was on our bus and sharing our room. That evening we met a few other travellers outside our guesthouse, and ended up going to a local pub and drinking a few beers. Tired from all the travelling, and probably still not completely recovered from tubing, I ended up going to bed reasonably early and having a good nights sleep.
The day was spent in a pretty leisurely fashion. I had a good sleep in, my first decent one in days. I had been told that there wasn't much to do in this sleepy capital, and so Garth and I booked a sleeper bus leaving that night to go to Pakse, the next destination of mine. I had originally intended to go out to one of the big temples just outside town, or perhaps the Buddha park, but after sleeping in, checking out of the guesthouse, eating some food and catching up on some emails, it was already the early afternoon. So I just spent a few hours walking around the city, meandering aimlessly through the less touristy parts. I quite enjoy just walking around new places, you get a feel for the vibe of the place and see what the 'non-tourist' parts look like. I walked past a couple of quite impressive buildings, and stopped at the 'Black Stupa', a very old stonework Stupa that is now a roundabout.
Walking back to my guesthouse in the mid afternoon, I heard someone yell something at me and ran after me down the street. Not knowing exactly what was going on I turned around and was confronted with the face of an old friend from New Zealand, someone who had gone to College House with me in my first year of uni. A fellow engineer (albeit only a chem eng), he is working on a mine site in northern Laos through and Australian company and was down in Vientiane for a few days. He had a colleague with a car, and so we all jumped in and went down to a pub for drinks (incidentally, the same pub I was in the night before). We had a good chat over a few drinks and laughed at all the old stories and caught up on the news of mutual friends we knew. It was definitely one of the things I least expected to happen in the sleepy streets of Vientiane!
Unfortunately after a few hours I had to leave and meet Garth for dinner before our bus left. We found a great curry place and proceeded to eat a lovely curry with samosas and naan bread. Brilliant. We said a quick goodbye to Charlie and Lou, before leaving for our bus. As is usual with any transport here, we waited for a good half hour at our guest house before the tuk-tuk arrived. We piled into this, and after picking up more and more people to the point of overfill capacity we arrived at the bust terminal. There was some confusion as the person issuing the tickets didn't have a matching ticket for my receipt (like everyone else I had booked and paid at my guesthouse). Nevertheless, after a few of them argued in Lao, I was given a ticket and sat down in my recliner seat of my VIP bus for the next ten hours.
