Where we’re going

Last modified on 2007-12-28 19:14:02 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

To celebrate our 25th anniversary, Tom and I am embarking on a long vacation to Southeast Asia. We’ve been to Thailand three times now, but this will be our first visit to Laos and Vietnam.

I know it’s rather grand, but the trip is sort of epic, so I’m calling it our Voyage of the Descending Dragon. ‘Descending Dragon’ is what the Vienamese name for Halang Bay means. (Seeing the limestone formations of Halang Bay is going to be an amazing thing, I’m sure.)

• 1 & 2 We’ll fly from San Francisco to Seoul, then to Bangkok. A quick nap at the airport hotel and then to our first real destination, Chiang Mai, in Northern Thailand.
• 3 We’ll travel overland to Chiang Khong, at the Thai-Lao border, where we’ll spend the night.
• 4 We’ll take the ferry across the Mekong River to Houayxai in Laos, where we’ll begin a two-day river journey down the Mekong stopping overnight in the riverside village of Pakbeng, then to Luang Prabang.
• 5 A flight from Luang Prabang to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
• 6 A flight from Vientiane, to Hanoi, in Vietnam.
• 7 A drive out to the cost on the Gulf on Tonkin, for an overnight trip on a boat around Halang Bay.
• 8 We’ll return for more time in Hanoi. Then a flight from Hanoi, via Bangkok, to the island of Phuket, for the resort part of our vacation
• 9 A flight back to Bangkok
• 10 A day’s boat trip to the ancient city of Ayutthaya, then back to Bangkok
• 11 Back to home, via Seoul and Nagoya

We’ll be travelling a total of 18,877 miles to get to our various destinations. (16,457 miles will be in the air on the trans-Pacific part of our journey.) Total scheduled time in the air = 41 hrs 43 minutes.

 

Sources:

The map is from Lonely Planet’s Road Atlas for the area

Some mileage calculations from Google Maps, WebFlyer’s MileMarker, and the InfoPlease Distance Calculator.

And away we go….

Last modified on 2007-12-28 19:11:22 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

 

Having been driven by our friend and neighbor Penny, who is house-sitting for us and looking after the creatures, we boarded BART for the airport this morning and started our adventure.

About looking at these posts…I’ll be writing as we go along. Being not at all sure how often I’ll be able to hook my computer up to the Internet, posting may be infrequent. Never fear though… updates will be coming. If you’d like to see past posts, there are two ways to do so:

1. Click on "Pages" at the top of any page or look for "Pages" in the column to the right, and click on "Descending Dragon". (Doing it this way will display the posts in chronological order, oldest to most recent.) Or
2. Click on "Categories on the top of any page or look for "Categories" in the column to the right and click on "Descending Dragon." (Display order this way will be reverse, most recent first.)

Wish us luck. Remember if you’d like to contact us, write to any address at chaosweb.net. (Or use my first name before the at sign.)

Day 1 - The flight here

Last modified on 2007-12-30 11:49:30 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

BART (our local train) is a great way to get to the airport.

This trip is an excellent excuse to finally get rid of my ancient frequent flyer miles on United. We’re flying business on Asiana, Thai, and United. Within Asia, we’ll be on AirAsia and Lao Airlines.
	Here we are in the airport lounge. I’m already getting to the blogging part of our trip.

	Obligatory shot of the plane we flew across the Pacific. 12.5 hour flight…sheesh!
And the joys of airplane food…

	One of the pleasures of travel is sampling the local ways of eating. Here in Korea’s Incheon airport… hmmm
Arriving in Bangkok at 1 in the morning after 27 hours of travel so far, we opted to stay in the Novotel airport hotel rather than hanging out in the terminal. Surprisingly, within 30 minutes of touching down, we had collected our bags, gotten money at an ATM, cleared customs, and were in our really nice hotel room. Hanging on the precipice of complete exhaustion, we fell into the most comfortable hotel bed ever. … Never seen a bathroom with a picture window before.
And here’s a picture of the 1-year old Suvarnabhumi Airport. It’s H U G E, but fairly efficient.

Chiang Mai - arrival & Sunday Walking Market

Last modified on 2008-01-01 15:29:52 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

It is the oddest feeling: coming to a place halfway around the world from one’s home and feeling at home. It’s a great feeling and that’s how it was for us coming off the plane and back into Chiang Mai. Our third visit to this great northern Thai city, it makes it so much easier to fight our way through jet lag, and makes for a pleasant start to our journey, to see a familiar, yet deliciously strange place once again.

We’re staying at a place called the River View Lodge, which has admittedly modest accomodations modestly priced. Yet it’s one of those places well-loved and often recommended by its visitors. Over the past day, I’ve heard four other people, staying among it’s 3 dozen rooms, proudly telling the owner that they had sent friends here. So let me just say: if you’re coming to Chiang Mai, this is the place you want to stay.

Also speaking of pleasant past associations, we went looking for our old travel agent here, Vanida Tour, only to find their old storefront occupied by someone else. We wanted to make arrangements for the three-day trip from here to Luang Prabang in Laos. Trying other agencies in the area, we just didn’t get anywhere. About to give up, we spied that old Vanida sign across the street…they had moved. Needless to say, good old Mr. Surin Sittinoi set things right for us.

That taken care of, we ventured out into the Sunday Walking Market for the evening. Chiang Mai, once on the old China-Burma trade route, is well-known for its Night Bazaar, an orgy of consumption covering blocks and blocks of the city every evening. The Sunday Walking Market is relatively new and has a much more festive atmosphere.

Ta Phae Gate in the old city wall is the start of the market, decorated very festively for the holidays and King Bhumipol’s 80th birthday.
It extends along Th Ratchadamnoen for its full length. Stalls upon stalls sell just about everything under the sun.
Temples along its length are open for the evening, people thronging for chances to make merit …
and to feast from the food stalls found there.We had a feast of Pad Thai, Som Tum (papaya salad), grilled chili honey chicken, cha yen (Thai iced tea), and coconut/pandan leaf puff pancakes. Each dish was 20 baht or less. That’s $0.60!
By the way, we’ve promised to ourselves that we’re going to be fearless eaters this trip, without regard to humble location or unusual ingredients. So far so good.
We were quite happy to find that two of our favorite temples the whole of Thailand were open for the evening. More on them when we return during the day, but here’s a few pictures.The Buddha at Wat Phra Singh is reputedly one of the most beautiful around and it’s very old.
Wat Chedi Luang has an ancient studa which looks fantastic lit up at night.
The four faces at one time each contained buddha images, including the famous Emerald Buddha (more on that later as well). This is one of the others.

All in all, a very pleasant evening.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

Last modified on 2007-12-31 13:14:09 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Here’s Tom ringing it in the New Year at Wat Prahtat Doi Suthep Rajvoravihara yesterday. Apropos of resolutions wherefore, we saw this in a Buddhist book at the temple: PEACE IS FREEDOM

Chiang Mai - Doi Suthep, the Zoo, Meals & New Year’s Eve

Last modified on 2008-01-01 15:30:23 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

New Year’s Eve Day: first thing this morning, we headed up to Wat Phra Doi Suthep. Set in a stunning location on top of a small mountain outside of Chiang Mai, this has been one of my very favorite places in the world since we first came here years ago. Legend has it that relics of a revered monk (probably some bits bone) back in the 14th century miraculously replicated themselves. The king of Lanna at the time put them on top of a white elephant which then marked the spot where a new temple should be built on top the mountain by circling two times and lying down.

	To get to the temple (wat), you first have to climb the 306 steps of the Naga staircase.It being New Year’s Eve, a national holiday, throngs of people were there, turning what is usually a very serene spot into a festive one.
There are very many ways and places to pray at a Buddhist temple. Something familiar above. Another is to the right, by ringing the bells. And then, as in the picture below, you can circumnavigate the central stupa clockwise while meditating on the teachings of the Buddha. You can also receive blessings from a monk.

The central stupa is brilliant, surrounded by four gilded umbrellas. If the monk’s relics do indeed exist, deep within this stupa is where they would be.

(I’ll post a lot more pictures of this place in the gallery when we get home.)

We had been curious for a long time about the Chiang Mai Zoo, so that’s where we headed as we descended back down to the city.
Let’s just say, not every experience one has while travelling is wonderful. To the right you can see our the overwhelming aspect of our visit. Unbelievably, you can drive through the zoo, which hundreds of people did because of the holiday, creating a massive smog-infested traffic jam.
Admittedly we didn’t help matters by climbing onto one of the trams that course their way through the park like roller coaster cars. We did however see one or two animals.

Matters improved immensely with lunch, which we had at a restaurant promoting the northern specialy of khao soy. It basically a very special noodle soup, with an intensely-flavored Burmese broth as its base, to which are added noodles - flat rice noodles, round ones, or egg noodles - crispy noodles on top, and a small bit of meat or vegetables. The diner adds fish sauce, more chili paste, pickles, sugar, shallots and more coconut milk to taste. For dessert we enjoyed dead-ripe mangos with sticky rice and coconut milk, also a northern specialty. It was all incredibly delicious!
	For dinner, we headed back outdoors, this time to the Anusarn Night Market. We went to a seafood restaurant where we had stir-fried crab with curry sauce, garlic & pepper shrimp and stir-fried Chinese morning glory, ong choy.
And for dessert….tah dah: McDonalds! Expatriate McD’s still serve the old fried pies, but with unusual flavors. Dale had the corn last night. They also had taro root, pineapple and chocolate banana.

And finally, New Year’s Eve. At that point in the day, I just didn’t feel like working the camera much, so sorry, no pictures of an incredibly spectacular show. I had no idea the Julian calendar New Year was such a celebration here in Thailand. Any excuse for a party I guess. The fireworks were absolutely nuts, exploding near and far from the ground from literally everywhere in the city. It didn’t have the regimented choreography we’re used to back home, but for sheer exuberance, the Thais have it in spades.

Starting much earlier and much, much more beautiful were the kham loi, which are large barrel-shaped paper lanterns with fire in the open base, which makes them into glowing balloons. Thousands of these were launched, filling the evening sky, floating gracefully in the currents of air, forming myriad new constellations. The picture below doesn’t begin to do them justice, but at least you get a small idea:

New Year’s Day - the Old City, a Massage, Warorat and Food

Last modified on 2008-01-02 00:36:41 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Today we headed back to the old Chiang Mai within the city walls to re-visit some favorite temples.

First we went back to Wat Chedi Luang which we had been to accidentally just a couple of days ago.

The city of Chiang Mai dates back some 700 years. Wat Chedi Luang is about 600 years old. The first of many fascinating things about this place are the old city pillar enclosed in this building and one of the two diptocarpus trees here which are about 300 years old. There is a legend that as long as the tree here lives, Chiang Mai will continue to exist.
	There are two fairly creepy spots that are dedicated to famous monks who had died. Relics (i.e., their bones, teeth, and dried bits of organs) are preserved in tiny glass stupas, and there are unnvervingly lifelike wax replicas of the fellows as well.

 

The main event here, is the Chedi itself, which at one time housed the Emerald Buddha in its eastern portico. Its original height is unknown, but we do know that at one time it was completely covered in gold.

 

On the way out, we chatted with Udon, a young monk originally from Laos. He’s been a monk for eight years, having found the life well-suited to him. We talked about monk relics, what to do with a buddha image that has outlived its usefulness, monks roles in the political life of a country, and the difference between Theravada Buddhism, the kind practiced here, and Mahayana, practiced in northern Asia.

 

Jet-lagged or simply addle-pated, I mis-identified Wat Phan Tao the other night. Practically right next door to Chedi Luang, it has a stupendous teak wiharn with a beautiful buddha statue.

 

Next we walked down to Wat Phra Singh, home to the most revered buddha image around, the Lion, or Phra Singh, Buddha. Being New Year’s Day, there was a huge crowd attending festivities. I don’t know for sure, but like the Chinese tradition of cleaning house both literally and metaphorically at the Lunar New Year, Thais treat this time of year in a similar way.

 

For some completely unusual, we went for a Thai foot massage at the Women’s Prison. Part of the rehabilitation for return to civilian life, the prison has a place for Thai massage. Lest you think this was calming, nurturing massage, trust me, it hurts!

For lunch we had some delicious Khao Soy (Chiang Mai noodles) at a very local restaurant nearby.

For complete fun and entertainment, we went to Waworat Market, which is very much where Thai people buy stuff. It was a madhouse and we loved it.

And to close the day, we went to the mountainside restaurant, Thalad Prawarat, where we had phenomenally spicy pomelo salad, papaya salad, crab baked with glass noodles and a fantastic star-anised and pork-infused sauce. The music was a country-western quartet, doing standards like "My Way", and "Love Me Tender"…they even had a banjo player!

 

Sorry if this seemed so thrown together today - I actually shot more that 400 photos today and really haven’t had time to sort through them all. Please come back to look at the photo galleries later. I wanted to be sure to be able to post before we leave Chiang Mai in the morning. I doubt I’ll be able to post again for three days.

Chiang Khong

Last modified on 2008-01-03 01:17:41 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Left Chiang Mai on a 5-hour mini-van ride through the northeast country of Thailand. The ride was fascinating of course, seeing the agricultural activity, the changing variety of produce at the roadside stands as we moved from one region to another, the landscape transforming from the granitic intrusions of Chiang Mai to the limestone karsts that we’ll be seeing so much of in Vietnam and further south in Phuket.

The city of Chiang Khong, founded hundreds of years ago, misleads by its one-road town appearance. Apparently it’s a major trading port between Thailand and China.

Tom and I are great big babies, so we’ve never really done anything that qualifies as ”roughing it”. Now we have. We’re staying at a guesthouse on the river, the kind that costs between $5 & $20 per night. We stayed in a bamboo thatch-roof hut with bamboo mats for walls, a loud snorer next door, no heat, beds that felt like they were made of concrete, in the 50s last night, bathrooms outside down a bit, and…you know what? it was the best night’s sleep we’ve had so far. (The guesthouse operation is quite pleasant and efficient and comradery of fellow travellers in the situation was a nice surprise.)

 We walked a bit around town, which has a few impressive temples, including one with a chedi dating back over a thousand years. (I’ll get pictures up when I’m able to again.)

The Mekong River, our path to Luang Prabang, extends mightily from the window to my right. It was beautiful this morning as the mists cleared, the air filled with the sounds of hundreds of roosters crowing.

Speaking of chickens, the eggs are fabulous. We see the hens everywhere. Yolks are as deep in color as the ones we get from our girls.

The Journey from Chiang Khong, Thailand to Luang Prabang, Laos

Last modified on 2008-01-05 07:16:20 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

We made our way from the Thai side of the Mekong to Lao via a small ferry boat, quick and easy.
The slow boat to Luang Prabang is notorious for being overcrowded and very uncomfortable. It’s not an unfair notion. After they squeezed more people onto this boat than could even sit down, a mutiny of sorts erupted and they relented and brought in a second boat.
Not ones to shrink from an opportunity, we jumped ship to relatively more luxurious accommodations where they had installed some minivan seats on deck.
And here’s what the boat looks like on the water.
The boat was full of all types of people, from young backpackers on 6-month adventures, to ordinary people like us, to very well-off folks. Of particular note is this fellow, who apparently is a kind of witch doctor who’s been around here for years.

Our trip, which lasted two days, 6 hourson the Mekong river the first day, 7.5 the second was of course to see the scenery and life on the river. Here are few pictures:
(I was surprised to see vegetables to grow in such sandy soil.)
We spent the night in the hill-tribe village of Pakbeng. Once again no hot water. Actually, the electricity (which seemed to come from wood-burning generators) shut off at 10pm, never to come on again during our stay. The “shower” consisted of pouring ice cold water from the tap in the sink over my head using a small bowl.
Coming off the boat onto a sandy shore was a mad scene. Men were grabbing bags off the boat and heading up the hill. Where, no one could tell, since we didn’t have any reservations anywhere, none of us. We finally worked it out and wound up at this guest house.
Our first Lao meal was delicious: water buffalo lab (a Lao salad), kai pane (Mekong River weed), and good Lao beer. Afterwards we took a walk to the river’s shore where we had the unusual treat of a dark sky and brilliant stars.
Here’s a lovely yound lady from whom Tom bought oranges in the morning:
I wanted you to see what the “gangplank” looked like for our boat:

The scenery on the Mekong was magnificent:

Arriving in beautiful Luang Prabang, we had something of a fiasco when the hotel had no record of a reservation for us and no space. Keeping our heads, we agreed to come out to their out-of-town property, the Villa Santi Resort with hopes that everything would be straightened out in the morning.

Heading straight to dinner, we had another delicious feast: deep-fried Lao sausage with a 7-chili sauce, fish lab, a Lao curry (more Burmese than Thai in flavor), and ground fish with eggplant. Being the only people in the restaurant, someone hustled to get the advertised Lao classical dance & music. It was very sweet.
Not having realized how terribly cold we had gotten after two days, we had hot showers, the first proper ones really in a week. Tom was moaning in a pleasurable way when someone outisde thought some had an accident. Security came running to check on us! That straightened, we fell into a deep sleep for 10 hours.

Luang Prabang - Day 1

Last modified on 2008-01-28 21:10:36 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Well-rested, we awoke, going out into the misty morning and saw what a lovely place the Santi Resort actually is. The breakfast buffet was good and I enjoyed my morning bowl of noodles, and Tom enjoyed watching me assemble each piece so carefully. During our morning walk, we even saw a working water buffalo on the farm directly in back of the resort.

 

If you’ll recall, there was a huge mixup with our reservation. I suspect now it was a matter of someone somewhere not opening their email. It’s all worked out fine. We came back into town where they gave us a nice room. After some uncertainty where we’d have a room for the last night of our stay, luckily for us, we were given the best suite at the hotel. So moral here: you catch more flies (so to speak) with honey than vinegar. Incidentally, walking around, we saw that there are many lovely-looking guesthouses through the city. The best place to stay in my opinion, is the area north of the Villa Santi, where’s truly quiet and peaceful.

 

	Luang Prabang, a former capital of the Lao Kingdom is now a Unesco-designated World Heritage site, which means that there are some developmental restrictions in exchange for international assistance in restoration. It’s bordered on the east by the Nam Khong river and on the west by the Mekong. This is the Nam Khong.
Here’s the obligatory chicken shot for the day.
I think it’s said that Luang Prabang has as many temples as Bangkok. As a result there are monks everywhere.

 

Laos, like much of Southeast Asia, is well known for its textiles. This young woman was kind enough to let me watch her at work. The loom is completely manual, the feet being used to separate the lengthwise-running threads, while the hands shuttle the colored pattern threads horizontally. To the right, her finished handiwork.

 

Here’s a newsflash for all you tourists: contrary to the guidebooks, there is now an ATM in Luang Prabang. It’s only on the Mastercard/Cirrus network, so no Visa/Plus ATM cards. It’s easy to find on the main drag. Withdrawals are limited to less than $100, but you can do it several times up to your bank limit.

This city is by far the easiest to visit we’ve seen yet in SE Asia. It’s well-contained and clean. You’re encouraged by the aging French colonial atmosphere to take things at a leisurely pace. A word to the wise: if you spend much time on the main drag, you’ll be put off the throngs of non-Lao people milling about among the cafes, souvenir shops and tour agencies. They all have their use, but beware the food along the strip is not very good, the Lao food tamed down for more timid palates and the much-touted French pastries not much to shout about at all. Our visit is fairly limited so we can’t go and do any of the many interesing trips in the area, like to the Buddha caves, Pak Ou, or to the waterfalls, but we’ve already decided Luang Prabang will be a major stop on our next itinerary to this part of the world.

We spent the afternoon just wandering around, trying to get our bearings. The first temple we stopped in was Wat Mai Suwanaphunaham, dating from 1797.
	It has lovely gilded bas relief on the front wall.

Here’s a hill tribeswoman at work and her wares
	The night market has none of the aggressive selling of, say Chiang Mai. It’s quite pretty as well.
The evening ended with dinner with our new friends from the river journey, Kiima and Lee. Most recently from D.C., they are on the most amazing around-the-world trip which seems to be lasting the better part of a year. Check out their blog here. Coincidentally, it’s been fun running into folks from the boat trip. Since it was so strenuous, we all feel friendly, greeting one another on the street. One of the cool things about traveling, for sure.

Intermezzo

Last modified on 2008-01-08 00:15:14 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

Sorry, no new post today. We were traveling from Luang Prabang to Vientiane. More ASAP.

Luang Prabang - Morning Alms

Last modified on 2008-01-08 19:51:33 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

 

As you might know, part of Buddhist monastic life is the vow of poverty. Worldly possessions, or connections to things,  are a basic cause of all suffering, so the belief goes. This extends to food, so every morning, monks all over the the region set out early with their begging bowls like the ones below which we saw at a temple in Chiang Mai.

Their receive offerings from lay people, for whom the compact offers them the chance to "make merit", for themselves, their family and ancestors.

Because the temples in Luang Prabang are in such close proximity to one another, the morning alms is quite a spectacle to behold. Lay people begin to gather around 6 in the morning with their offerings of flowers, sticky rice, fruit and other food. The monks all come out around 6.30 am. As it happened, one of the routes was on the streets surrounding our hotel.

Their are signs posted all over town how to observe the proceedings respectfully, but I had my doubts. I had even read somewhere that the Lao government had threatened the monks with sending out imposters if they didn’t so that the tourists would have something to photograph. Thankfully, that turned out to be just a rumor, as I found in a conversation with some monks later in the day. They assured me all are welcome to observe the morning alms and, if so moved, to participate.

	Regulars waiting for the monks to arrive.
	Regulars giving alms…
	….newcomers as well.
	Young monks in this society get educations that would have haven unavailable to them otherwise.
	The color of a monk’s robes is an indication of how long they have followed a monastic life: young ones have bright saffron-colored robes. This one, on the right, with his bright yellow sash, is very recent vintage. As a monk serves longer and grows to teach others, his robes darken in color. It’s said as a leaf ages on a tree, it becomes darker, before it finally parts the tree, to drift away.
	This might be an everyday occurrence, but it was one of those things a traveler remembers forever.

Luang Prabang, continued and concluded

Last modified on 2008-01-08 17:05:29 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

 

After watching the morning alms, we set about some more wandering about Luang Prabang. Wandering it was: I’ve rarely seen a town so well-suited to simply walking about, getting to the "important" sights in such a casual way.

In case you’re wondering, this is where we wound up staying, which is where we intended on staying in the first place, the Villa Santi, whose original building used to be a residence of the Queen of Laos.

 

 

	The normal breakfast for many people in SE Asia is a bowl of noodles. I love ‘em too. Starting with a good broth, you add rice noodles (either flat or round) and fixings to your own taste: cilantro, watercress, chili, fish sauce, protein, pickles. The broth is apparently what separates one vendor from another.

 

	Here’s the very nice young monk I spoke with after the morning alms to assuage my concerns.
	We met him at Wat Xieng Mouane, a restive small wat with a lovely fresco on the front wall of the sim, from the late 19th century.
	Following the communist takeover and the American war, a great deal of the cultural arts supporting the temples was being lost. UNESCO and the government of New Zealand are supporting this wat as an arts school to preserve these skills. Here are some new buddha statues in the process of being made.

A great deal of Luang Prabang actually isn’t all that old. The city was sacked by invaders in the late 18th century. One of the few temples that went largely untouched was Wat Xieng Thong, saved only because the leader of the invaders was a monk there in his youth. The original sim was built in 1560. The swooping roofs are exemplary of the local style of architecture.

The interior has wonderful repetitive decorations that I found very stylish.
The back of wall of the sim, has a great glass mosaic tree of life.
Here’s an example of the style of glass mosaic on the side of one of the libraries. If this is done the same way as in the throne room of the Palace Museum (no photos allowed there), the colored glass would have come from Japan.

 

	Across the way on the temple grounds is this amazing royal funerary carriage house.

 

Well, it’s about time for lunch isn’t it? No more perfect place perched above the Mekong river.

	We had another wonderful Lao lab salad, this time with pork and the lao version of papaya salad, both fiery hot.
	Perfect accompaniments were sticky rice (which you eat with your fingers, rolling it up into a ball and dipping it into your sauce) and rich Lao iced coffee.

Re-energized we climbed the 228 steps to the top of Phousi hill, the high point visible from anywhere in Luang Prabang and the surrounding rivers.

 

There’s a chedi at the top, but the real attraction is the vantage point for seeing the sun set over the Mekong River.

 

For dinner, we had a fine meal a chichi restaurant, 3 Nagas, which was reviewed favorably in, of all places, the New York Times. My pictures didn’t come out, but the meal was fairly unusual so here’s the dishes we had:

Sin Doot - sun-dried water buffalo meat with lemongrass & sesame seeds
Jaew Bong - sun-dried chili & water buffalo skin paste
Krai Kouam - stuffed fried eggs
Karanab Pa - grilled river fish stuffed with Lao herbs & pork wrapped in a banana leaf
Black Sticky Rice
And a stew made from fermented fish

Finally, after such a long day, we got an hour-long foot massage (for $3).

All in all, it was the perfect sort of introductory visit to a charming place. There’s plenty we would like to do and explore when we go back again.

Vientiane - Arrival

Last modified on 2008-01-09 14:58:52 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

We arrived in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, none too impressed. It just seemed, well, not very interesting. As usual, first impressions are the most incorrect. It’s not a bustling metropolis. It’s not a hedonistic party town. It’s not a repository of a people’s culture or visually stunning. But it is extremely pleasant to be in, relaxed, interesting and has really good food.

Our hotel, the Inter City Hotel, right on the banks of the Mekong, is a wonderfully eccentric place. Apparently cobbled together from two buildings, we wound up in the best room again, this time Suite 888 (a very lucky number for Asians), right on the fifth floor. It’s big with an eclectic collection of furniture and a first for us, windows that look out on both sunrise and sunset. Across the Mekong, is Thailand.

The beach scene is very cool, with riverside restaurants running all along it.And yes, the tables are made of tires turned inside out.
	One of our activities here was a spa treatment at this place, the Champa. (Champa is the Lao word for frangipane, also known as plumeria.) Admittedly, we paid top dollar, but we wanted someplace clean and legitimate, if you catch my meaning. I’ve never had a spa treatment, so I can’t compare, but this one was a 30 minute herbal sauna, a 60 minute body scrub, and a 60 minute Lao massage with oil. All was good, but the masseurs made some forays into unwelcome territory, but that was dealt with quickly (we were on side-by-side tables after all!). I wonder if it was only the expectation of an expectation on their part. In the end, I still prefer a traditional foot massage.

Laos, as a former French colony, is supposed to have good bakeries. The first one we stopped into lived up to that reputation easily.

I usually don’t like to get restaurant recommendations from the hotel, mostly because the suggestions tend to skew toward the less interesting and touristy. So when the receptionist told us about a restaurant with Lao, Italian, Halal, and lots of other things, plus the possibility of a buffet, I put it way at the back of my mind. Walking by, the menu actually seemed good, so we had dinner there. It was so good we went back on our last night. It’s called Khop Chai Due, which means “thank you very much”. Over two visits we had:

• • Buffalo Lap (that Lao salad I’m so very fond of)
  • Pork Lap
  • Mekong Snake-head fish, deep fried
  • Fresh-water squid, grilled, served with a spicy sour fish sauce
  • Sticky rice cooked in bamboo with coconut milk and pumpkin

It was all great food. Our visit was off to a good start.

Vientiane - some sights

Last modified on 2008-01-10 15:54:20 GMT. 0 comments. Top.

We took off in a tuk-tuk the next day. These colorful modified motorcycles carry passengers all over Asia. A modern descendent of the samlor, the human-powered bicycle carriages.

PATUXAI

Our first stop was Patuxai. Unlike the Arc de Triomphe, which it mildly resembles, Patuxai has four archways. I love the story of how it came to be. In the early 1960s, the US-donated cement for a new airport. Instead, Laos took the cement and built this Victory Gate, sometimes called a “vertical runway”.

	The climb up to the isn’t bad and the views are impressive.

Talat Sao, the Bus Station, and Talat Khao Din

One of our favorite things to do in a new city is to visit where people shop. Talat Sao was a good place to start. There were a few food stalls in front. The major part of the market is textiles, including the brilliantly-colored silk threads used for weaving.
Walking just a bit, we found ourselves in the middle of the bus terminal. Charming.
Now for the major action, the fresh food market: Talat Khao Din. Everything can be found here. Tom got a bit queasy in the meat department.

To get to That Darn, we walked past the US Embassy and, as seems to happen everywhere we go, while other countries’ embassies are generally approachable, occasionally even inviting, our embassy has high walls, barbed wire everywhere, machine-gun-toting guards and gives the overall impression of a nation scared of the world, seeing danger at every corner, uninterested in actually interacting with the world, confident that the American Way is the only way and that the all non-Americans wish they had just one iota of what we have. I was mildly hassled while taking a picture of That Darn because the tiny bits walls I accidentally photographed could aid terrorists engineer the downfall of the entire nation. Imagine that.

Getting off my soapbox now, I’ll tell you that That Darn was completely covered with gold in the dim distant past. One legend has it that a sleeping dragon lies beneath.

Next stop was Wat Si Saket, a fascinating temple with 1000’s of Buddha images.

A Food Break

Quite unusual for us, we went to yet another restaurant twice during our stay here. This one started out as a garage-front operation selling baguette sandwiches, now it’s in its own small building on the riverbank beach. P.V.O. starts with warm toasted baguettes, with shatteringly crisp crusts, fills them with Lao pate and other sliced meats, adds cilantro, green onions, carrots and so on and finishes it off with a spicy-hot dressing. One of the best sandwiches we’ve ever had. (Better than Subway, even…imagine.) I also tried the xiumai baguette, with Chinese meatballs. Also delicious.

Also, again because of the French colonial influence, we tried a French restaurant for dinner, Le Cave des Chateaux, where we had a pleasant, refined meal of grilled river prawns, flambeed with cognac, and roast roe-deer.

Wat Si Muang

SE Asian cities typically were officially founded with the establishment of a city pillar, a phallic-shaped stone thrust into the ground, saying “we are here”. Wat Si Muang, the location of Vientiane’s city pillar has a particularly gruesome story attached to it, because the founding required a human sacrifice. Whether pushed or jumped in by choice, a pregnant young woman went into the hole before the pillar, to be crushed when it plummeted down. (The city pillar is the gold stone wearing a skirt in front of the gaudy lightwheel. Nowadays, it’s the most popular temple to come and pray for good luck or favors. We were lucky to see an Asian Openbill Stork on the grounds while we were there.