Travel Blog Chapter 16: From Vientiane to Vang Vieng

Vientiane was a rather quiet city compared to urban Vietnam where you have lots of impatient vehicles honking at one another. The road traffic system was also more organized compared to Vietnam as you have traffic lights that cars actually stop at. The people were significantly more friendly as well. As you passed by shops and people on the street, on occasions they would smile at you and greet you with "Sabaidee" which essentially means "hello". After checking into Sabaidee guesthouse, I decides to stay in a dorm for a day to see how it goes. The place was old but clean and there were not many people in the dorm. I took the lower decker and unpacked my belongings. There were only a couple of Japanese travelers sharing the dorm with me.

Street in Vientiane

After settling down and washing up a little, I took some time to explore the city. Laos is a Buddhist country so you could see many temples with magnificently sculpted statues along the street. Eventually I went into an Indian restaurant to have my lunch. The food was good and spicy. It was wonderful to eat something of similar semblance to Singapore food after a few weeks away. I continued my touristy exploration of the city after that, visiting shops and just walking around the city to get my bearings. I realized that there was relly just not much I could do in Vientiane and eventually felt that it would be a waste of time to stay another day in the city. I went into a bus booking company and decided to book my transportation to the next closest destination, Vang Vieng which was I heard a very "happening" place to go. Over there I could supposedly indulge in Sea sports as well as other trekking activities. Sounds fun. The rest of the day was spent chilling out in a coffee cafe beside my guesthouse, surfing the net and reading my book as there was not much else to do in Vientiane except shop around and I think temples just don't interest Singaporeans that much compared to westerners as we have those in Singapore already.

I had a good sleep that night and very early in the morning after packing and checking out, I waited for my bus to pick me up for Vang Vieng. the bus was half packed with loads of people going to Vang Vieng that day. I saw a group of Asians that I thought strangely look Singaporeans. There was this European that booked 2 seats so that he could have more leg room and also to leave his bag. It was not a wrong move as there was so much room in the bus that most of us have 2 seats to ourselves without paying for the other one. The ride was around 4 hours and we stopped for awhile to have our lunch. We were going up the mountains and the air was getting colder. The scenery was very beautiful as well and this part of Laos look like something out of a Chinese painting with rolling hills, soaring mountains and villages that littered the undeveloped landscape.

Laotians playing ball game

Vang Vieng landscape

Evening in Vang Vieng

We finally arrived in Vang Vieng and the bus stopped at a guesthouse where most of the passengers checked in to. It was a little too pricey for me and I decided to explore a little. The buildings in Vang Vieng looked very quaint and they all have some buddhist influence. As I was walking along the road, I met this guy from Netherlands who was also looking for a guesthouse to stay in. Eventually we settled on a very nice and new looking white washed guesthouse tht had a bargain price. 10 USD for both of us and we decided to share a room that night. We had our lunch at a cafe where there is a special menu if you want to get high. You get to buy cannabis, weed in these places and you can also request to have some of your food cooked with such concoctions. It was interesting. You won't have that in many places.

The main thing to do in Vang Vieng was tubing. It is this activity which I found out later they adapted from the United States where they got these huge Tyre tubes, inflate it and you lay down in it and float down the river. It was fun but also you need to be careful as there were cases of people drowning when the tubes got into fast flowing waters and people lost control of their tubes. My Netherlands friend wanted to do it but I wanted to see what else was available. That day I spent my time exploring the town and checking out trekking companies to see what they were offering. Eventually I settled on a kayaking, caving and trekking package at  bargain price. We would be starting out early in the morning the next day and the whole session will end by evening time. During that day I kept seeing those Asians I saw in the bus and when I finally heard them talking, their Singaporean accent and Singlish was unmistakable. Singaporeans are really everywhere. I spent my night watching reruns of Friends and Family Guy in cafes as it was aired in every cafe. Laos has the best fruit milkshakes as well and I while away my night sipping on my delicious concoctions in this supposedly party town.