Vientiane is like no other place in
Laos that we've come across: it's a big(gish) city with lots of car
traffic, it's hot and it's humid. It seems more than a little hectic
after the generally laid-back approach of country Laos.
We woke early in the morning to rain,
heavy rain. We are in Laos at the end of the wet season and people
are surprised at the odd downpour. They all seem to think that the
rainy season has finished, and therefore it should just stop raining.
Anyway I was a bit worried that the rain might make the city even
more humid than it had been the night before, which was not a
prospect I was looking forward to.
The rain stopped quickly and the
streets, which half an hour earlier were 10cm deep in running water,
started to dry out. And it stayed overcast which turned out to be a
good thing as it kept the temperature down a bit. Even so we had
climbed into the low thirties by the time we checked out of the hotel
and headed out to a silk factory.
Visits such as these generally tend to
be a means of trying to separate us from our money. I've seen these
sorts of looms before and the goods on display were very expensive by
Lao standards and pretty high by Australian. We bought one little
thing and left.
After that the day in Vientiane became
a progression of one temple after another. My problem with Asian
Buddhist temples is that I have very few reference points to hang on
to and each subsequent temple tends to merge into its predecessors. I
am quite happy to admit it's my fault and I need to get better at
saying that enough is enough.
 |
| Reclining Buddha |
The day was relived by a visit to the
COPE centre which produces prosthetic devices and wheelchairs for
Laotians disabled by the leftover bombs I've mentioned previously.
They do great work which is worthy of support so we left a donation
and bought an over-priced T-shirt.
Lunch consisted of the worst green
papaya salad we've had since we got here: way too much chili and too
much fish sauce. Not sure what I would have got if I'd actually asked
for the spicy version.
We only spent a half-day in Vientiane
and that was probably enough. Most people we spoke to pre-trip warned
us that the city wasn't worth spending too much time in and they were
right. When we set up this holiday the Mekong River Cruise in
Cambodia was the centre-piece and the rest of it fitted in around
that. Unfortunately Robyn consulted the wrong year's calendar at one
point which meant we needed to drop one day from our Laos tour so we
could get the correct flight to Siam Reap, in order to do what we
wanted there and still make our cruise on schedule. We decided, based
on the previously mentioned advice, to drop our second day in the
capital. We are now glad we did.
We made it to the airport in plenty of
time, checked in, made it through internal immigration and spent a
hour or so sitting in the departure lounge reading. At some point
something was said in Laotian over the loudspeaker. We took no
notice. A few minutes later Robyn said, “Was that my name?” I
hadn't understood any of the message but looked around and didn't see
anyone official wandering around. “There's only about 6 Caucasians
on the flight,” I said. “If they are looking for us they'll find
us.” No one did.
The boarding call came over the public
address system in Laotian followed by English so we joined the queue.
And when we got to the final check we were stopped. The steward
seemed not know what to do and waved us back to the direction of the
immigration desk. For a few minutes we were waved from one place to
another and I started to get a bit angry about it all. Not the best
reaction to have in a foreign country in this sort of situation.
Immigration didn't want to know about
us and finally someone told to go back to the check-in desk. When we
got there my bag was sitting next to the desk with a number of people
standing around. We handed over our passports and boarding passes and
asked what the problem was. “Do you have alcohol in this bag?”
“Yes,” I said and explained about the two bottles of wine we had
left from our Australian stash and the three small bottles of wine
and whiskey from our Mekong distillery trip.
We needed to drag them out. So we did
that, and by process of roundabout explanation it appeared that we
had too much alcohol with us. For a minute there it looked like I was
going to have to make a decision about which bottles to leave behind.
But before that happened someone stated that the bigger wine bottles
could stay in the checked-in luggage – securely wrapped in t-shirts
etc – and we could take the other bottles with us on the plane.
Well, that didn't seem right so we asked for confirmation, got it,
packed the suitcase, checked it in again and headed back to the
departure lounge.
I had expected that we would be turned
back at the gate due to the liquids in my day-pack but we were waved
through and escorted by one of the airline staff down towards the
area where the bus left from. By the time we got there the bus had
pulled away from the departure gate and was heading towards the
plane. Again I thought our luck had run out and that we would be
forced to stay for the next flight, probably the next day. But our
escort had other ideas and set off across the tarmac towards the
plane, sitting about 200 metres away. At any minute I thought the
airport police would come screaming around the corner, arrest us and
throw us into some sort of re-education camp. And again I should have
had faith in the laid-back manner of the Laotians. By the time we
got to the plane the bus was discharging its passengers and we
climbed on board as if nothing had happened.
Pakse was reached an hour later.
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