Vientiane, Laos

Our adventure to Vientiane was actually taking us to a small Thai border town called Udon Thani first. Maybe it was the "stupid American" in us, but both BO and I had expected complete chaos and confusion. Perhaps bribery or detention at the border or at the very least some cheats that would leave a bad taste in our mouths. But I'm happy to report that the whole border crossing experience was incredibly organized and virtually painless.

We flew out of the old Bangkok airport, Don Muang where a few domestic flights still operate from. I think it's high time they just shut this airport down -- it's old and dated and has limited services. By now, BKK should be fully operational anyway. The flight from DMK to Udon Thani was only an hour and 15 minutes -- piece of cake considering some of our other travels.

Once in Udon, we took a "limo" (the Thai term for a shared van service) to the Thai-Lao border town of Nong Khai about 45 minutes away. An enterprising young man was offering passport photo service for only 100 baht, so I took advantage of the offer and had 8 photos in hand within 5 minutes. We also bargained with a taxi driver to take us all the way to Vientiane, so he came along with us and helped us through the border crossing process. Worth every dime.

In Nong Khai you pass through Thai customs before boarding a bus that takes you across the Friendship Bridge to the Lao side. Once across, you apply for an on-the-spot visa before continuing onward. Luckily we had our guide because he expedited us through some lines that we didn't really need to wait in. Of course the computers were down so waiting for the visas took a little while longer than we expected. But otherwise, the process went smoothly and soon enough we were in this guy's taxi headed for the city of Vientiane.

About 45 minutes later we were in town and ready to eat! Food is incredibly cheap in Laos -- I imagine it is even cheaper outside of Vientiane. But beers were about $0.75 and you could get a decent meal for around $3. We had lunch and then wandered in search of a hotel which ended up being a bit more hassle than we thought, but finally found one and settled in.

My initial thoughts on Vientiane was that it felt very cosmopolitan for such a small riverside town. There is notable French influence throughout the city, with wide boulevards and a lot of French colonial architecture sharing space with buddhist wats and Thai-style homes. We saw monks everywhere which made me wonder if it is similar to Thailand when all males go through a period of monkhood.

Our first night there we decided to try out Lao massage before dinner and found the Champa Spa on the main road that runs alongside the river banks. Wow, for $10 it was one of the best hour-long massages I have ever gotten even if I did have to wear the giant flip flops. :)


Thoroughly relaxed, we had dinner at a local Italian joint and gorged on pizza and wine. There are quite a few European food options in Vientiane along with tons of cafes, probably a result of the French influence but also all of the European tourists that seemed to be there.

Thursday
We got off to a late start on Thursday and ended up missing out on any opportunities for a day excursion. We were both hoping to head out to the country and had started our malaria pills in anticipation, but most of the worthy destinations were at least a 3 hour drive and wouldn't have been worth our time.

Instead, we decided to just take in the city of Vientiane and explore at a relaxed pace. That consisted of many many beers at lunch, doing our own walking tour around the Palace, Wat Sisaket, the Lao version of the Champs Elysees and Arc de Triomphe, and finally the US Embassy where I was reprimanded for trying to take a photo.

We walked along the Mekong river as well which was surprisingly dry. I'm not sure if it's just the time of year of if it was a drought, but you could have walked across the river in many places. There are tons of food and drink stalls lining the river banks. Basically simple houses on stilts where you can relax with a snack and a beer. Further down the river we found a great bar called Spirit House that had fun drinks AND free wifi! Needless to say, we stayed there for a while.

We wrapped up our last night in Vientiane with another massage (not as good as the first place, but probably also not a good idea to booze all afternoon beforehand) and dinner at a French spot in town. We had grand plans to karaoke after but we were both so exhausted, we just headed back to the hotel and crashed out.

Friday
We figured we would need more time to get back to Bangkok since we had heard the reverse direction was not nearly as clear cut as coming into Laos. So we had a slow morning before trying to find a taxi that would take us to the Friendship Bridge. That ended up being a bit of a hassle but we finally sorted it out and we managed to get through the border okay. Not as efficient as before, but we managed.

Soon we were back on a plane to Bangkok just in time for the rain to start. One more night in Bangkok before heading home. We met up with CB and had drinks and dinner before crashing out.