Laos - Vientiane

Vientiane, Laos – Day 25 (Feb-23)

In the morning, we look around the town center and locate the budget traveler staples; ATM, mini-market, bakery, travel agency, and restaurant. We eat at a Tex Mex restaurant, which sounded really good at the time; but for them it seems tomato sauce and salsa is “same, same, but different”. Reading the book, we find there isn’t much to do in this city, so we book a bus to Luang Prabang for tomorrow.

enchilada with steamed rice...interesting combination

In the afternoon we take a Tuk Tuk (taxi) to Pha That Luang. This is the most famous monument in Laos, and its picture is on their money. This is convenient, because we point on a 50,000 bill to our Tuk Tuk driver; “take us here”.

Lao money with Pha That Luang image

A Tuk Tuk is basically a motorbike, where the rear end is replaced with a two wheel axel, covered truck bed, and one or two padded benches. Most Tuk Tuk can take six people with their luggage on top, but not all Tuk Tuk are created equal.

tuk tuk

Coming from Vietnam, Lao people are kind of lazy. As described in the travel book; where the Vietnamese driver runs you over for business, and the Thai driver takes you to a pearl shop along the way; the Lao driver needs to be woken from his nap, and persuaded to take you. Compared with Vietnam, we find Laos has much less people, moves much slower, and volume is turned down to a 6 from 11. (Vana: It seems that there are more foreigners on the street than locals. The city looks abandoned.)

The monument is cool, and the gold color looks great against the blue sky. We take a quick look in a few Wats (temples) nearby, and then Tuk Tuk back to the hotel.

Pha That Luang

nearby Wats

For dinner, we enjoy a dinner theater show featuring Lao food , dance, and music. The theater is really clean, and they check your shoes. The food has some interesting flavors, but the overall combination tastes awkward to me. I thought I was going to be treated with the tasty Indian donut sweet balls, but turned out to be deep fried hard boiled eggs.

dinner theater

Lao food

half lady half bird dancing

The show is a little cheesy, and the end has Vana dancing on stage but realizing it’s been a while since dance class. Also, we got a good luck white strings for our wrists, which they typically wear for New Year in April.

Vana dancing on stage

Lao New Year good luck white strings ceremony

CLICK HERE to see pictures from this day.


Vientiane to Luang Prabang , Laos – Day 26 (Feb-24)

In the morning we check out. I am not happy to pay full price for our room with broken air conditioning. Rooms with no AC are half the price at other hotels. Last night, I explained that I don’t intent to pay full price for our room. After a few calls to his manager, he offered us a room above their kitchen and the hotel’s screaming water pump. In addition, the restaurant had been using the room for its bathroom because the lobby toilet backed up. How generous of him to offer us this room at 10 PM after the restaurant is closed and he knows we are leaving early.

After offering 10%, then 20% discount, I pay him half. I then open my wallet wide with my money showing and ask him to take the rest. He doesn’t like this idea, and after another call the matter is settled. He is actually a nice guy, but it takes some arm bending to understand my complaint.

While rips offs, bait/switch, overcharging, and other scams are normal (and widely accepted) in many parts of the world, stealing is universally considered wrong. I think my gesture demonstrated that selling me an incomplete service at full price is like supervised stealing. When travelling in foreign countries, you have to accept getting ripped off from time to time, but you don’t have to make it easy.

We take the 8AM VIP bus to Luang Prabang. The bus is a bit run down, but looks stylin’ with its turquoise, yellow, and purple curtains. While in the bus station, we see five guys roll a motorbike up the side of the bus next to us. They secure it on the roof, with with other boxes and sacks of goods for transport. We are very impressed, and Vana shoots a great sequence (See Slideshow).

The bus takes a well maintained scenic two lane road through a large mountain range. We pass a lot of villages along the way. Some of the villages are a bit make-shift, but most of the houses have a proud look to them. Some of the bamboo wood houses with thatched roofs on stilts are quite attractive.

In the mountains you can see a lot of slash and burn on the steep hillsides, which are replaced with bananas. It seems they just plant the bananas in the middle, and then let it weed out the cleared area. Now is the dry season, and the air quality is really terrible from burning vegetation. With minimal breeze, the air is trapped in the river valley between the mountains.

Overall, the ride is comfortable and after eight hours, lunch, and three pee breaks, the bus arrives at the bus station in Luang Prabang. We take a Tuk Tuk into town with a French guy. The Tuk Tuk driver stops at a few guest houses, and we are happy to take a look and bargain. When we arrive at our guest house (Silichit Guest House), the Tuk Tuk driver drops us off. We phoned ahead, and I am guessing he doesn’t get a commission from us. We head into town, and stop at a candle lit Café for dinner along the way when the power goes out.