Instead of flying directly from Luang Prabang to Vientianne (Lao's capital city), we decided to drive down with a car as we were told by guide books, trip advisor and Daniel the hotel manager that the drive will be breath taking. It failed to take my breath away - but we did see some nice spots. Perhaps because we were there in the driest season every thing wasn't at it's 'show case best'. But little spots such as this twisty river Nam Song on the way were nice.
What wasn't so nice was seeing large areas of the mountains being razed for crop. The trees have already been chopped off long ago, but there is still quite a lot of jungle brush & bamboo growing on the hills. These are regularly being burnt to make way for bananas and pineapples and veggies. It seems that the government allows people to lease part of the hills to grow their own food. That seems to be commendable enough but wish they had a more controlled way of doing it.
On the way, we stopped for lunch and there was this village in the middle of nowhere. Probably the hill used to be nice and lush at some point and now it's being cleared for roads and restaurants. The market still takes place at the junction of the roads.
Yummy looking roasted bananas. If it weren't for all the dust flying from vehicles, i would have survived only on street food such as this. They also roasted sweet potatoes in a similar way and the smells were very tempting.
A row of bamboo shoots - wish i had a kitchen where i could try them out.
Our lunch stop. It was fricking cold and we all had chicken soup. It's a bowl full of rice noodles swimming in water with chicken and carrot pieces in them. A plate of salad greens and beans are given as dressing (!). Though we didn't do it, our driver (name - Thong), put salad leaves, mint leaves and onion greens in his hot soup. The green beans were eaten raw with a dipping of dry prawn paste. Ulli was surprisingly adept at the chopsticks.
Once in Vang vieng, we walked around the streets. Again, the street food was amazing looking and i wished that i could eat it (the dust all over kept me from doing it). Here you see on the right - patties made of sticky rice on a bamboo stick. Like a lolipop.
Then, there were skewers of meat balls, veggies, chicken wings etc.
Our room at the hotel had a lovely view of the hills.
Vang Vieng is mainly a backpacker town. The main street is full of guest houses, bars, restaurants, internet cafes, tour agencies, and western tourists. Attractions of the town include tubing and kayaking on the Nam Song River. But we didn't do any adventurous things - Ulli had a different adventure at night instead!
As we were peacefully sleeping, Ulli jumped out of bed (nightmare? need for adventure? looking for food?) and fell on the side table. Though it sounds funny now, it was most unfortunate then - he got a deep cut on his left eyebrow which we were busy with for some time. After that - all nights had me keeping a sub conscious watch on him - monitoring his moves!
I didn't have the heart to take a pic a day after the incident - he was so miserable. But the healing went well and this is him looking very sheepish - 3 days later.
We went from Vang Vieng to Vientiane by bus. Ulli's bus trip after 20 odd years! It didn't start off too well with the bus forgetting to pick us up due to some misunderstanding with the hotel. The bus picks up tourists from their respective hotels and ours thought we wanted to go to Luang Prabang instead of Vientianne. After some clarifications, we got the right bus picking us up.
Located on a bend in the Mekong River,Vientiane was originally one of the early Lao river-valley fiefdoms. At some point, Laos became a French protectorate in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
It has a very laid-back atmosphere and is small enough to go around by foot. Parts of town are nice with tree-lined boulevards and old temples. Our outing consisted of visiting the the Wat Sisaket and hunting for a good restaurant to dine in.
Wat Sisaket.
Wat Si Saket was built in 1818 on the orders of King Anouvong. It was built in the Siamese style of Buddhist architecture, with a surrounding terrace and an ornate five-tiered roof, rather than in the Lao style, which kept it safe from the armies of Siam that sacked Vientiane in 1827.
Wat Si Saket features a cloister wall with more than 2000 ceramic and silver Buddha images.
All the niches also have tiny buddha's sitting in them. They seem to dress up their buddha's the way the indians dress up their gods and goddesses in the temples.
We stayed at neat little hotel in vientiane, which also had an offering corner for their spirits.
Our hotel from outside
Dinner after much hunting was in a french run restaurant. For the first time i ate something called 'blinis'. Blini are small, yeast-leavened, buckwheat pancakes that originally come from Russia. They are teensy weensy sized and served with cheese, salmon and mushrooms. Those were the starters.
I had a beef steak - they called it medium but i thought it was uncooked. I was assured that that's the only way one can eat a steak . Mine was chewy and i think i'll keep away from beef steaks hence forth. It just isn't worth the jaw pain.