Laos - from the beginning

Our Laos adventure started with a flight from Bangkok to Udon Thani which is in Thailand, but right at the Thai/Laos border. Smooth sailing so far. We then had to get on a mini-bus to take us to immigration. That's when I got mad. I mean - really mad. Just because I have a Canadian Passport - I had to pay $7 (American Dollars) more for my passport than anyone else. I could eat for three days on that amount of money. I'm curious to know what Canada ever did to Laos. Anyway, the whole process was ridiculous. Having to pay a little money here, a little money there; put a stamp here, put a stamp there; pretend you're staying at one guest house, then pretend you're staying at another. Finally, we walked across a line and we were in Laos. Immediately we were bombarded by men wanting to drive us into town for ridiculous prices. Luckily our bartering skills are quite good, we refuse to be ripped off, and the Laos language is quite similar to Thai, so we were able to do quite well. We agreed on a fair price and were off. (The Laos man travelling with us went for much cheaper). We arrived at our guest house - the driver of our Tuk Tuk tried, once again, to rip us off, but I would have none of it.

We had arrived in Vientiane... the capital city of Laos. Laos is a former french colony. A very underdeveloped country, currently under communist rule. Nothing familiar is there. No McDonalds, no 7Eleven, no Starbucks (AHHHH!!!!) Anyway, many people in Laos do speak French, so that helped a lot too... and made me realize how much french I actually know when I put my mind to it.

We trudged along the streets of Vientiane, looking for a place to stay, but all was booked up. So, we ended up at a fairly high-end hotel. Mind you, it was only $48/night... for a pretty nice place. It had been a long day of travelling and after a Mexican meal (???) we had an early night, knowing full well, that we would be up early the next morning.

The next day we went to Buddha Park... which is just that. A park with a lot of Buddha statues. It was beautiful though. The grass was bright green, beautiful flowers... a cave that you could climb to the top of and see a view of the whole park. It was quite lovely. We hired a Tuk Tuk for the day and he actually didn't try to rip us off, and as a result, we gave him a nice tip at the end.

That was the end of Vientiane. For a capital city there was very little to see and very little development. There were some paved roads, but many were half paved, half gravel. The ride to Buddha Park was bumpy to say the least. We had read a lot about the city prior to going, and it didn't sound like there was a whole lot to do... so we got out of there. Next stop... Vang Vien... backpacker central.