Anyways, we arrived in Vientiane yesterday morning. The first blow out was the fact that half the people who were applying for visas on arrival had left their money in their check-in luggage. This was sweet for us, as I had USD conveniently stored in my document holder, so the wait time was instantly halved. We got our visas no problem, cleared immigration and got a taxi into Vientiane city. The first this that buzzed me out was driving on the right-hand side of the road - crossing roads was a nightmare!
The money in Laos is wack. the smallest denomination is 1000 kip. why don't they just re-base everything? it would make converting back in NZD so much easier... oh well, at least I feel like a rich guy, walking round with several hundred thousand in my pocket. High roller.
The Lonely Planet guide's pick for accom in Vientiane was Chantha Guest House. I have no idea why it was their number 1 pick, cos it was a shitter - the doors didn't close properly, but at least we had a balcony and aircon, so i wasn't complaining... much. The room for the night was 120,000 kip, which is roughly $15. pretty cheap at $7.50 each. We dumped our packs and went for a wander round the city. The Mekong river passes right by the town, so we checked it out. Got the the edge, but there was no water. walked to the base of the banks and still no water. Went on an adventure to try find water, and about 300m later we made it to the edge of the Mekong. Thailand was on the other side of the river, and that was only about 200-300m away. There was this sweet statue at the river-side (see right).
Dripping with sweat, and with burnt feet from the sand on the river base, we decided to grab a feed and a first Beer Laos. Having conquered the city in about half a day, we decided to book a bus ticket to Vang Vieng for the next morning. The tickets were pretty cheap, 35000 kip (around $4) for a 3-4 hour trip. this happened to be the same price Asty paid the tuk tuk to take us to the Morning Market in Vientiane (about a 10 min ride) - i think we got a bit ripped off there. To drown our sorrows, we hit up happy hour at one of the pubs in town. Large Beer Laos for 10,000 kip (about $1.20). fair to say, these went down pretty sweet. by the time we finally retired back to our room, the ladyboys and other women of the night were out in force, but we managed to stave them off... just...We're currently at Vang Vieng. Our mini-van turned up at 10am and picked us up for our 3 hour trip. 3 hours turned out to be more like 4... and on one of the most bumpiest, pot-holed filled roads i've ever been on... was pretty stoked when we finally pulled into the city. The streets here are lined with bars and guest houses. Most people are away tubing at the mo, we're gonna go sort tubing for tomorrow.
Tune in next time for details on the tubing and other antics.
chur.
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