Laos Part I : Vientiane 🇱🇦

It’s time to tick off a new country – Laos! It’s a small country, north of Thailand and west of Vietnam that I didn’t get to visit when I was in Southeast Asia in 2017 with Suzanne. Oh yeah and it’s landlocked. On Saturday morning we fly from Singapore direct to the capital city of Vientiane on a small airline called Scoot. It’s less than three hours away and we arrive to 33 degrees… it’s HOT!

We’re staying at a very “local” style hotel called Chanthapanya and have a huge room with a large bathroom and an amazing multi headed shower!!

We’re hungry for lunch and the guidebook mentions a nearby place that’s good for pho (soup with noodles for my mammy who won’t know!) so we head straight there …

We set off to explore Vientiane… it’s Saturday afternoon in the capital but it’s very quiet with very little traffic. We pass an interesting stupa with all sorts of greenery growing out of it. I find out later that it’s from the 16th century and known as the black stupa.

Along the streets there are lots of ATM’s in little booths like phone boxes and a lot of very interesting food. The electric wires are not quite Nepal bad but they’re a bit sketchy…

We continue walking the quiet streets and get to the victory gate – Patuxai or as we like to call it Punxsutawney Phil!!

There are vendors under the arch and I buy a hat as I forgot to pack one and it is seriously roasting!

We set out next morning to visit the key sites around town and to take in some of the not so key but interesting buildings…

We are going to see a lot of temples over the coming days. In Laos they call them wats. The names are really tricky and can be different on the map, on the sign outside them and on Google… we may have to give them some nicknames! We go to Wat Si Saket (or as we are calling it Sissy Spacek). It’s the oldest wat in Vientiane …

…. and is most famous for the more than 2,000 Buddhas in symmetrical niches in the walls of the cloister.

Across the street is what used to be the exclusive temple of the Laos kings. It’s called Haw Pha Kaew and it’s now a museum housing many (you guessed it) Buddhas!

The most important Buddha statue that was here until it was stolen by the Siamese in 1779 is the Emerald Buddha. The Emerald Buddha is on display in Bangkok and most people go to see it when they visit. Nobody mentions that it belongs to the Laos people.

There are so many wats and so many Buddhas…. I particularly love the reclining and the big belly Buddha.

We visit the COPE visitor centre. COPE stands for Cooperative Orthotic & Prosthetic Enterprise. COPE is an NGO supporting those injured from unexploded bombs leftover from the massive tonnage of bombs dropped by the US on Laos from 1964 to 1973. The bombs were mostly cluster bombs which are just terrifying when you see how many small explosives they turn into and how much damage they can do. I wasn’t aware of what they call the “secret war” on Laos so I’ll need to do a bit of research on that later.

It’s time to try a traditional Laos massage. When I arrive up to the massage parlour a young man comes outside and asks me what I’m looking for. He explains the Laos massage is stronger than a Thai massage (😳) and that it’s 80,000 Kip for one hour (that’s less than €5). He also mentions this isn’t his shop, he’s just a customer but he speaks English! I swap my flip flops for their indoor flip flops which are a giant men’s size and in I go. From here on in there is no common understanding of language… I sit down in a chair and a young girl brings a basin and washes my feet. Then she motions for me to follow her upstairs to a large room with 3 thin mattresses on the ground. The room is empty so she points to the middle mattress and hands me a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. [I’m pretty sure the shorts are men’s, most likely for the more ‘over-sized’ westerners!!].

I would describe the massage as a cross between a physio session and a hard-core 1:1 stretching class. The girl uses all of her body to stretch me out. She starts at the feet and presses her knuckles in hard, making her way up my legs. Every time I wince in pain she giggles and then I giggle and it’s all very funny! She seems surprised with my reaction to some of the stretches and I can only imagine my degree of flexibility is something she doesn’t come across every day. I reckon if this was a test I have been a massive fail!!! She has certainly loosened me out though and I’m happy to have had the experience.

There are so many good food options very close to the hotel. I’ve had a hankering for roti so tonight we have Indian and it doesn’t disappoint.

We’re up and out early next morning in an attempt to catch the cooler part of the day. It doesn’t feel much cooler to me. It’s still about 30 degrees. The sky is hazy as we take a forty minute tuk tuk ride to Buddha park.

I’m loving the Buddhas, even if it is a bit of a tourist trap… Shane not so much.. the gardens are lovely though with some colourful flowers. The garden goes to the river and again we get a view across to Thailand.

There’s a strange circular thing in the garden that has a low door to climb through….

I go in to take a look and it’s a weird circular cave with Buddhas in the centre. There are narrow steps that I climb to get to the top where there are many signs to say it’s slippy.. in fairness it’s a bit of a death trap. Shane takes my photo from below and I’m outta there!

Google told us that another temple (Pha That Luang) is closed today but the driver says it’s open and he can take us. This has a beautiful golden stupa which is the symbol of the Lao nation and appears on their money. (I checked and it’s on all the notes)

In front of the stupa is a statue of King Setthathirat

On either side there are monasteries so we take a peak into one of them but it’s very quiet with not much there. It’s a beautiful building though with with an impressive staircase.

Next door is another impressive building with an interesting Garuda flanking the pavilion.

Around the side is a tree with Buddhas all around….. love it… I can never have too many Buddhas!

We head back to our tuk tuk driver who’s waiting for us and realise there’s another section of temples and Buddhas I take a quick peek in and am delighted that there’s a large golden reclining Buddha (lazy Buddha as someone I know calls him!).

Time for the last temple of the day. It’s close by our hotel but we haven’t managed a visit yet. The name in the guidebook is different to the name on Google which is different again to what it says outside the building. We’ll go with Wat Ong Teu. It has a beautiful vibrantly coloured entrance.

All templed out we head for the national museum which seems to have relocated from about 10km away but alas it is closed for renovations (Google didn’t tell us that). So we’re a bit disappointed but there’s a craft beer bar around the corner so we head there for a well deserved rest and a beer.

Back to the hotel for a cool down in the pool before we get ready for a walk down to the river to see the sunset.

On the way back through the busy night market there’s an exercise class happening. We head to Sticky Fingers for a cocktail while we figure out what our final meal will be. On the way to the restaurant we’ve settled on, we pass a very casual eatery on the side of the street which has Mekong fish on the grill. We are tempted to stop but keep going….. alas the restaurant we’re heading to is not there, it must have closed down so we head back to the locals type establishment and have a gorgeous final dinner of grilled Mekong fish, pig intestines (they were actually quite tasty, chewy!), fried rice with shrimp, stir fried pork with basil and some bonus soup! An amazing final meal.

We are picked up at 7am and taken to the train station for our train to Luang Prabang. There was a bit of confusion yesterday and some emails exchanged with the tour company and we are now on a slightly later train. The journey to the train station is shorter than expected and we arrive with lots of time to spare so we sit in this new empty modern building in the middle of nowhere!!! I was about to say that there’s literally nothing in this train station but a small shop has just opened! Here’s to an enjoyable train journey north to Luang Prabang.