Yeah, yeah, I know, it seems without a job, this whole trip should be considered one long weekend. I actually still recognize the weekend, if only for the fact that is when others kick it up a notch on the fun scale.
I finally spent some time outside of Thailand (the trips to the border towns of Myanmar do not count, seeing how I only spent maybe a total of sixty minutes during four visits there). The destination was Vientiane, Loas, Capital City.
Vientiane rests along the Mekong River, on the northern border of Thailand's eastern territory. The area is quite flat, with very little shade, though it didn't get unbearably hot during high noon.
Maybe it's the area, maybe it's just me, but I can't say that I had a great time in Laos. First of all, the food is just average. Granted, there is a mix of Chinese, Lao, Thai, Indian and French (from colonialism) ethnicities. I just didn't find anything of high praise, especially for a capital city. One thing that I did like were the grilled baby back ribs. Using a dry rub of spices (cumin, coriander, garlic, salt, pepper and many others I couldn't make out), when it was grilled to juicy-ness it was a winner.
Due to the French presence, the baguettes were nice. Sandwiches are dressed with unripened papaya, cucumbers, tomatoes, mayo, green onion stalk, sliced yellow onion and sweet pickles. The main item of the sandwich could be tuna, eggs, cheese... but the Laoation way is with a pate spread, Lao-style BBQ pork slices and chicken breast slices.
Beer Lao is supposed to be known as the best beer in Southeast Asia. I can say that their lager (the flagship) is, but only marginally. Thailand's Singha is a close runner-up, but tastes nasty when it gets warm. Beer Lao doesn't get as nasty. The one Beer Lao flavor that does get raves from me is their Dark beer. Of course, I haven't had a good beer since leaving the States, so this stuff could just be the equivalent to Killian's or Michelob's Special Dark (I can't say for sure).
The city itself seemed quite lame to me. Aside from a few places with worthy photo-ops, the architecture was bland and monotanous. After one afternoon of walking around with my cameras, I felt as if I saw all there was to see. The next day, I resolved to rent a motorcycle to check out the countryside.
The day began as an indication of what was to come. I ordered breakfast at a noodle-shop. I pointed to something on the menu, noodles, but ended up with vegetables and rice. I rented the motorcycle and got the crappiest one of the bunch. Before leaving, I noted that the fuel tank was not full, as stated in the rental agreement. A kilometer after filling up the tank, I noticed that the gas tank-needle was not functioning properly. Within minutes of that, the side mirrors swayed with the wind. That's fine, I thought, I can deal with these minor problems. I could just switch bikes, but I had already filled the tank and didn't want to go thru with that again.
My destinaton was a national park about 100 kilometers away from Vientiane. Adding to my adventure, highway signs are in short supply in this country. The map that I was using neglected to show what the highway numbers were. For a while, I was just moving, blindly, hoping that the direction I was going was correct. Let me add, the directions that the Lao tourism bureau gave me said to take Highway 13 south, though clearly the road was going due east the whole time.
I finally made it to the park without any more incidence. A fork in the road gave me the choice of a couple of waterfalls. En route there, I passed thru a gate guarded by two men working for the parks department. Their only job was to make sure that all tourists pay $0.50 US as an entrance fee. (For this day, I was their only visitor.) On my way out, I saw what they do with the rest of their time.
One guard stopped me at the gate and ordered me over to him. He wanted to give me some sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf. Not a bad tasting treat (especially since I hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast). He gave me something to drink. It came out of a fish sauce bottle, but it wasn't fish sauce. It smelled like kerosene and well, tasted like kerosene, too. The guard told me that he and his co-worker would drink two of these bottles every day. Yipes! One shot was enough to burn a hole in my liver.
I left the park soon enough. Just like the area around Vientiane, there was not much shade. The trees were no more than four stories high, not much of a shade canopy to keep me there for more than a few minutes. As I got back to the main road to Vientiane, the rear tire went flat. It was so old, that it just exploded en route. That cost me 70,000 kip to replace (or the equivalent to $7 US). No more than fifteen minutes later, I ran out of fuel. Fortunately, as the bike was coasting on fumes, a roadside stand had a liter of petro to sell me.
I finally made it back to Capital City, but only after scrapping plans to visit the sculpture gardens that were slightly on the way to town. That turned out to be a good decision. The next morning when I went to return the bike, the starter failed to start and I had to push the bike back to the dealer. It's a good thing he wasn't around (too early in the morning), otherwise I would've yelled at him for renting me such a shoddy bike (which would have caused him to lose face... a social no-no around here).
With that behind me, the only thing I found left to do in Vientiane was just sit along the Mekong River, watch the sun set while drinking Beer Lao Dark.
