Vientiane, and pictures of Bangkok uploaded

We landed on our feet in Vientiane, we're staying at Le Leela hotel, and basically have the place completely to ourselves. Who said Laos had to be third world :o]

So aside from nice accommodation, what do I make of it? Well, to be honest I wasn't expecting a lot, and I was probably very unfair to Laos in seeing it as a gateway to Ha Noi. Vientiane definitely isn't hustle and bustle, fast paced or metropolitan. What is apparent, is Vientiane is finding it's feet, apparently with occasional backing from some wealthier neighbours (a Malay shopping centre, Japanese funded clinics), and an increase in tourism.

Aside from a fine selection of Wat (Buddhist Temples), and a very small CBD (think smaller than Hinckley) there's not a lot to do, a few swimming pools, a decent selection of eateries, bars and street vendors, that's your lot, from a tourism point of view. What it does have is a serving of French culture, apparently a few of them landed here and made an impression - probably running from a war. The positive result is some decent food (we don't like to admit it, but French cuisine cannot be denied), and here in Laos, you get plenty of fine dining for your money.

Today we hired (another) two wheeled bundle of joy... a 110cc monster. Great for getting around, and given the traffic here is by any standards low, our £4 a day bike is well recommended. Tomorrow, or possibly Sunday we shall go to Ban Na, at the National Park where we shall go in search of Elephants, Tigers, Bears, Baboons and if we're really lucky - some more Mosquito's, which also seem to like Laos, and Miranda, a lot. The weapon of choice for that will be a Honda Baja as we'd probably kill our 'ped.

We're forced to stay here until at least Monday, as the Vietnamese Embassy (your only means of a VISA, $50 please) apparently can't process it before then. Monday we hope to get a bus to Vang Vieng for tubing (floating down the river for 3.5km on an inner-tube, drinking Beer Lao from one of many floating bars) and a visit to the caves there. Probably two days later, we head to Luang Probang the old capital to see the apparently wonderful Wat and other historic interests. Then we must press on to the border towards Ha Noi to meet Rik and Rach... our travelling buddies for the week. Rik, Yorkshire teabags, ok?

So that's us in a nutshell. As a final note, feel free to take a peek at the photos'/video we've been trying to get up to scratch with!

Bangkok to Laos

Tomorrow we're leaving Bangkok, and it's definitely city I would recommend, and come back to. We spent four nights here at the Cha Da hotel, which for 25 sterling a night was excellent value, given the quality - we've done our best to avoid the touristy Khao San Rd, and thankfully as a consequence haven't seen many Euro/US faces out our way.

The best thing about Bangkok for me, is the availability of good cheap (often street) food, and if you avoid the tourist traps you can eat for 30/40 baht (50-70p).  If you don't like spicy food, you're likely to go hungry, but I haven't really had a bad meal, or experience (anywhere) from eating where the locals eat... on the street!

The people here are also pretty friendly from what we can gather, hopefully that's a trait that will continue in the final stages of our trip. The city itself is big, much like London, and houses around 8 million heads. Actually, the only real annoyance here we've found are the greedy Taxi drivers. Being good travelers, we read up before we arrived, and knew the Taxi's were good value - providing they switched the meter on. Most of them however, try and agree an 'off the meter special price', which in my reckoning is usually 100% more than the fare if you had them use the meter rate... most of them either just drive off when you say meter, or as we found last night at the Banyan Tree hotel (we visited the Moon Vertigo bar, 59 floors up) agreed the meter to the concierge then didn't switch it on, assuming we'd roll with whatever price he decided when we arrived - at which point, I opened the door, and politely slammed the door for him 100 yards down the road, ahole.

Everything works pretty well here logistically, you have the Metro, the Skytrain (monorail), Taxi, Boats (river & canal), and the 'special price' Tuktuk (see above). As I said, it's definitely somewhere to look at visiting, and if we had more time I'd spend it in northern Thailand, and not the busier southern islands, hopefully on return to Bangkok we can take a look at Ko Chang/Ko Mak and discover more of rural Thailand, if it still exists!

Anyway, tickets booked, hopefully speak to you in Laos! 

           

Update!

Well it's our last night tonight on our little island heaven. Tomorrow we head off in the morning on a new adventure, destination? Bangkok. We're planning I guess to be there for 2/3 nights, as we really need to cover some miles over the next few weeks.

There could also be a change of plan, heading instead to Loas, before Vietnam. We're meeting Rik and Rachel out there in Ha Noi on March 29th, so it makes better sense! 

In other news, I'm now also an Advanced Openwater diver, good for 30m, with some additions like night diving, and wreck diving. I'll leave it at that for now, as Miranda is fast becoming a dive widow :o)

Bye for now, J&M