Vientiane

So, we left the hedonistic pleasures of Vang Vieng behind (after spending a debaucherous day on the river tubing, sipping buckets, and swinging off of rope swings and zip lines) and took a local 7 am bus to Vientiane, the capital of Lao PDR, arriving in town around 11am yesterday. We walked from the bus station to the hostel, a great little place down a side street that is spitting distance to the Mekong and the fountain in the center of town. It also has a great communal balcony where you can look down at the townsfolk going about their business and make up stories about what they are saying to each other.

Vientiane, though the capital, is a very small city, with most of the sights concentrated in one area along a curve in the Mekong river. Yesterday we wandered around, ate lunch at a Scandanvian bakery (who knew?), and went to the national museum, which was a hilarious representation of a museum. Handmade diaramas depicting ancient towns should be in every museum, as should nonsensical renderings of provincial maps. We did learn a lot about what the imperialist western governments, mostly French and U.S., did to the fledgling communist state and their earnest and hardscrabble leaders. May I remind you all yet again that we suck. I also learned that everyone looked the same in the 1960s, regardless of where you lived, because apparently only one type of glasses were available world wide, and they had thick plastic frames.

Later we continued to stroll around, ending up on the river for sunset, lounging in a little bungalow thing and drinking beer lao. We ventured to the night market for dinner, which was disappointing in its scale but we got some new things to try. Only one of them really tasted like feet, which is pretty successful.

Today we got up early, rented some bikes, and rode out to the local wats. It being Saturday, they were full of Lao and Thai people in matching shirts on little tours, which was cute. Kate got a haircut at a funny little salon. We rode out of town to a wat that gives special meditation classes on Saturdays in Vipassana meditation, including sitting and walking meditations with a few monks and buddhist nun (who you pretty much never see). It was an excellent afternoon activity, and biking back at rush hour was also an experience!