After breakfast I went to check out only to be presented with a bill for $35 for the room! I had left them with the copy of my confirmation yet no amount of explaining would make the guy see that I had already paid. Once again 15 mins of phone calls took place backwards and forwards with me explaining as best I could. They then wanted me to leave my card details again with them, but if I did that I could see this room costing me double! It was nice but not that nice! Anyway in the end they just had to take my word for it and I headed off to the other place. Lets hope they don’t stop me leaving the country over it!
Vientiane is the capital city of Laos and although very nice so far it’s also very big so I planned to not spend too much time here before heading out so today’s plan is to see as much of here as possible and first stop is the Buddha Park outside of town, I just had to find the bus stop now.
Needless to say I didn’t find the bus stop straight off but I did manage to find, or stumble across, Patuxai, an Arc de Triomphe replica, which commemorates the Lao who died in pre-revolutionary wars and was apparently part paid for by the USA.
Patuxi (the Arc de Triomphe)
It’s Sunday here and it seems all of Laos are out sightseeing at the Arc de Triomphe! There’s, what seems like, hundreds of people milling around on arranged tours, being chased around by guys brandishing huge cameras and mini portable printers. The camera guys are totally ignoring the Western tourists of which to be fair there were only about 3 of us wandering around, I guess they think their bets were otherwise better hedged.
Next stop was trying to now locate the bus station for the Buddha Park.
After wandering around for a while in the general location I managed to find an interesting looking undercover market, which in actual fact turned out to be the main market for the whole of Laos perhaps, it was huge, selling just about everything from tourist tat to full blown chest freezers and the like! After deciding that in actual fact to get a chest freezer home logistically would be a nightmare and then of course where to put it I stumbled out into the daylight directly opposite the bus station!
So after visiting the facilities, never pass up an opportunity and all that (!!), I attempted to find the right bus. Although I really wanted to visit the Buddha Park it was still only my first full day and as such should be taken easy right? So although I was looking for the right bus I wasn’t in any great raging hurry and was just wandering around when a guy started chatting to me and asking where I wanted to go, he then started to try and sell me a tuk tuk trip there instead. I was keen to try out the local bus service until I noticed that the bus I wanted already had around 10 more people than there was seats for onboard and still had 10 minutes before departure! I think it was this guys easiest sale of the week, it wasn’t that difficult to persuade me, give me a few days to get into the Asia way of life and public transport and I’ll be back on form! He promised me the trip would take around 15 minutes to get there and would be straight there and back with an hour or so to look around when I’m there. Of course the guy selling me the trip wasn’t the guy taking me and after all of about 5 minutes into the journey we stopped to pick up passengers, I think it was at this point that the local bus went hurtling past us far faster than the tuk tuk was ever going to be able to drive! The journey to the Buddha Park took 1 hour and 5 more passengers, on the way back it took 45 mins, three stops and another 4 passengers!! And both times the local bus got there first! Live and learn right?! We’ll see! ;-)
The Buddha Park
The Buddha Park was very interesting though with, yep you guessed it, lots of Buddha statues. And some kind of building-monument full of more Buddha statues, that you could climb through, over and around and finally end up at the top of it towering over the rest of the park.
Once back in town I visited the oldest Wat in the city, Wat Si Saket and the museum across the road which was originally built to house the famed Emerald Buddha. At which point I thought it was more than enough for day one and headed back to the hotel for a well deserved shower and a bite to eat!
Wat Si Saket
Tomorrow Vang Vieng, a town well known for its party party nightlife, kayaking and tubing down the Nam Song River drinking beer and smoking joints! All the things I love in life!!!! NOT ......well apart from the beer I guess!! I’m not looking forward to this one, no one seems to be bigging it up at all and I just kinda think I know the type of place I’m heading for, it’s a stop gap between here and Luang Prabang though so a means to an end.
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