Bring Your Good Times, and Your Laughter Too

When I was looking to make my plans, one of the most difficult things to do was to know when the best time to be in each country would be.

Travelling through the winter and into spring I've had the advantage that nowhere I have been has been covered in snow and ice, and as time has moved on towards the hottest part of the year I have been, and will continue to be moving further away from the equator meaning that I shouldn't melt from unreasonable temperatures.

Trying to match up the ideal time to be in each country would be virtually impossible and it would most likely have meant jumping around in a strange order which would have been inconvenient and expensive. I tried not to let that kind of thing factor into my decision, and although I do have a document somewhere with a list of festivals and celebrations across Asia, I figured it would be more of a fortunate coincidence if I managed to find myself in the right place at the right time.

When backpackers come to this part of the world they usually aim themselves arriving in Laos and Thailand for this next week when both countries simultaneously celebrate the New Year.
I was in Brunei for Chinese New Year which was slightly curtailed by the government there basically banning any kind of celebrations as it is not the dominant religion of the state, but there were certainly plenty of fireworks when I as in Kuching and pretty much everything was closed for the three days after.

The Thai New Year is pretty synonamous with water; known as Songkran it is celebrated from April 13th to April 15th and is essentially a massive waterfight. This isn't just an excuse to launch water at everyone in sight though as the spiritual meaning is that people's sins are being washed away. I've seen photos on the Internet before as locals and foreigners alike are armed with water pistols and buckets - no one is safe including tuk-tuk drivers and passers-by.

Here in Laos the theme is essentially the same although it isn't as widely celebrated. As I mentioned in my blog about Luang Prabang, I'd seen some evidence of the water fight in action, but here the New Year doesn't start until Tuesday so these people were a little bit premature in their celebrations, but considering I live in a country where people start preparing to celebrate Christmas in the middle of November I'm choosing to reserving my judgement.

I'll be leaving before the start of the celebrations begin, but was pretty sure on my travels today that I would see more evidence of people preparing themselves to welcome in what must be the latest New Year on the planet.

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Where as Luang Prabang was a quiet and peaceful place, Vientiane appears to have the more typical traits of a capital city as late into the night I could hear traffic passing along the street in front of my hotel, and one particularly annoying vehicle who much have been doing laps of the block with their music up as loud as possible pretty much just to annoy everyone around.
This is one of the main issues with being on a main road I guess.

I was woken up by the sound of bassy music at about 9am this morning and it sounded like a party had been organised in my room. For a second I thought I was wearing my headphones in bed and had accidently turned them up really loud, but looking out of the window I discovered that a restaurant / bar across the road was playing their music exceptionally loud at an un-Godly hour on a Sunday morning, and that was where the racket was coming from.
I was feeling pretty tired yesterday so didn't expect to be woken up horribly early, but nevertheless at least I was now up in time for breakfast.

I got dressed and headed downstairs pretty confused by the fact that the lobby seemed completely empty. As I walked past the reception desk I noticed that on a small piece of paper attached to the front of it, there was a sign which said breakfast will be served 6.30am until 8.00am.
I didn't really process this information until I got back to my room, and then thought that not only is this an exceptionally short window to be serving breakfast in, but also how early do they think people staying in a hotel will be up. I can understand if this was some sort of business hotel but we're in one of the world's most laid back countries where I haven't seen a single person in a rush or wearing a suit.

Pretty disappointed that this information hadn't been relayed to me when I checked in I went back to bed to catch up on some sleep and make up for the fact that I had woken up early for no reason - but then it soon dawned on me that there was pretty much no chance I was going back to sleep considering the 'party' across the road had seemingly found themselves some new speakers to use, ones which turned up even louder.

Amazingly I must have been tired enough to go back to sleep for a little bit, but eventually felt refreshed enough to head out into the world. My first job was to look for some food considering I'd 'missed' breakfast.
I'm actually going to end up being able to spend almost three full days exploring Vientiane so I had to be pretty carefully with what I was going to organise today or by Tuesday I will be spending the day mouching around with nothing to do.
My issue is that I check-out of my room in the morning but then my flight to Korea isn't until 11.50pm so I essentially have another whole day provided the people at the hotel will be able to look after my bag for the duration of the day. I don't really fancy spending eleven hours in the airport, especially as the one here didn't look very large at all!

With that in mind I didn't leave my room until just after 1pm today. I managed to catch the beginning of the Chinese Grand Prix and then decided to made a move. Laos, unlike several countries in this part of the world, is very backwards in the way that things are actually closed over the weekend. Heading out down the main road, most things were shut and aside from a few places celebrating New Year by launching water at each other it didn't seem like there was very much going on.
The roads here are quite wide but you can tell the traffic isn't very heavy as you can regularly walk across them without having to go to a pedestrian crossing as there is frequently nothing coming from either direction.

I was still thinking about getting some food as I was pretty hungry, but also wanted to check to see if Victory Gate (Patuaxi) was open today. The general area sound the monument seemed much busier than it had done yesterday and from a distance I could see some people at the top so I managed to find the way to get up there once I eventually reached the underneath part of the structure.
It only cost 3,000 Kip to get up which is incredible value (25p) considering the view from the three levels you could look out from was excellent.

The stairway itself didn't look too great at first....

...and naturally there was a stop on each floor for souvenirs. The first level was round in a square which meant you could see each section of the city. There was a level just a bit higher than this which allowed you to do the same thing only with a slightly better view. And then you climbed a spiral staircase up into what looked like a bell tower and from there you could take pictures through a protective metal structure which allowed you to get a great view:

Once I'd climbed down from there I'd decided it was definitely time to get some food now before doing anything else. Yesterday I'd seen that there was a mall on the opposite side of the road to where I was walking, so I crossed over and it looked much more open today than it did yesterday.
Unfortuntaly the term 'mall' was used loosely as it was nothing more than a few shops. Downstairs looked like one big shop and the second level was just filled with jewellery stores.
I managed to grab a couple of waffles from a store that did actually sell food, but that defintely wasn't going to be enough to keep me going so as I headed off I was still on the hunt for something substantial to eat.

I continued walking down the main road I decided to turn off onto one of the streets I'd ignored yesterday with the hope that down there somewhere I would be able to find something. Where I'm staying is a little bit out of town, and from walking a long I saw a few more restaurants and some hostels which indicated that I was getting a little bit closer to the centre. It's strange really because both here and in Luang Prabang, the centre of town is essentially the waterfront and as I discovered last night, the closer you get to there, the more active the capital becomes.

Following the road along I unintentionally found something which I'd seen on my list of things to visit, and I figured that whilst I was there I might as well take it in.

That Dam, or the black stuppa as it is sometimes known is a simple monument which sits in the middle of a roundabout near the American Embassy.
It is believed to guard the city of Vientiane and it's residents from harm. It is quite basic and not how I imagined it at all from the descriptions I'd read online as I expected it to be part of a temple or something, but it really was just sitting on its own in the middle of the road:

I continued down the street pretty confident that I would soon find something, and as I got to a t-junction I saw that there were signs pointing towards the National Museum and also the Culture Centre which I know are significant buildings here. On the corner of the street where I was standing was a bakery so I went in and cured my hunger with a sandwich.

I'd intended to go and take a look at the National Museum, but figured I'd walked past the street having not looked very carefully what it was called when I glanced at the map on Google before leaving my room.
The museum itself looked quite small and either extremely quiet or just totally closed but the Culture Hall on the other side looked like a very impressive sight. It seemed almost as royal as some of the temples I've seen whilst in Asia, and although I have no idea what it was for, it look pretty imposing:

At this point I was quite close to the waterfront where I had walked to watch sunset last night, and as I'd only walked towards the city I decided to walk the opposite way and see if there was anything there. If not, at least it would be a nice walk to fill a couple of hours on what was quite a warm but breezy day.

In Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City I'd spent time near the river which had split the city in two, but it was strange to think that walking by the river here in Vientiane that the river actually splits Laos from a totally different country on the other side - not sure if I've ever had that experience before.
On the other side of the river is Thailand and somewhere down the section I was walking is something called 'The Friendship Bridge' which is how a lot of people cross from Laos to Thailand and vice-versa.

There wasn't much to see out the way I walked in fairness; the river was very still and there wasn't a lot going on aside from a section where there were a few boats:

On my left hand side there was quite a lot of empty space which looked as though it was being prepared to be turned into a huge business complex, but all it had was lots of empty shells of buildings there.
Further along was a more impressive building in white which looked like a huge hotel:

And then as I continued a long I did see what looked like a set of very nice waterfront properties:

After a while though the path started to wind off somewhere else and I thought it would be a good idea to head back towards the city as it was starting to get towards the time for sunset to occur.

On this occasion, sunset wasn't quite as pretty as it had appeared the night before. There were a few clouds in the sky and that obviously had an impact on the sun's ability to shine down over the Mekong, but I still managed to capture what did happen quite well as I strolled back towards the city:

For dinner I headed back towards the Culture Hall where I'd seen a row of restaurants earlier on, and I popped into one of them to grab a bite to eat before heading back to my hotel as dusk settled in.

In truth, I am a little disappointed with Vientiane, particularly as it is the capital of Laos, there doesn't seem to be that much going on. I've read that it's a bit of a transit stop between here and Thailand, and it could just have been because it was Sunday, but just generally there are a few interesting things to do, but after that I can't see how you'd spend much more than a couple of days here.
The fact that I was able to leave my room quite late and still accomplish everything I needed to demonstrates that somewhere like Luang Prabang gave me much more to do and was definitely a livelier spot, particularly in terms of entertainment.
That's not to say it's not a very nice place, aside from the occasional stray dog, it's actually not a bad city at all, and I particularly enjoy that it's on the river so you experience a cool breeze whilst you're walking along there.

My opinion could well be based on the fact that my hotel is a little out of the city so I don't really see what happens at night, but I'd imagine that things still are generally closed by 11pm, making it a rare Asian city that does actually sleep.

Celebration
Kool and the Gang (1980)