2/18–Luang Prabang to Vientiane

Our morning begins like all our other mornings here, coffee on the balcony, breakfast downstairs on the patio (this morning all the Chinese are leaving, so it’s not as crazy as yesterday), then back upstairs to finalize our packing.  As we are sitting on the balcony, wasting time until we need to leave, we start playing games with all the tourists passing by.  For some reason, everyone who walks past takes pictures of us on the balcony. We can’t quite figure out why though. The house is definitely a draw, an old French Colonial right on the corner, but still, it’s sort of weird. We’ve walked across the street and looked at the hotel to see if there is anything special or something we’re missing, but if there was, we couldn’t see it.  So, we’ve now started taking pictures of the tourists who are taking pictures of us. It’s actually fun – because once they realize we’re taking their picture, they quickly turn and walk away, as this couple is doing.  Ah, we’re so easily entertained!

Our departure time finally arrives and we settle into a shared cab to the airport.  Too quickly we are deposited out front of the terminal, checked in and awaiting our quick flight to Vientiane. All goes according to schedule, and we arrive a little after 2pm to the capital city of Laos.  A short taxi ride into town – and our driver drops us off across the street from Lani’s House by the Ponds – telling us (helpfully) to be careful crossing the road.  Thanks guy!  We roll, then drag our bags through the pebble filled drive and through the wrought iron entrance gate, which is tucked about 100 yards back from the street.  The effort is well worth it, as we check into this little oasis in the middle of this busy city.

The gate opens up onto a lovely garden area, complete with two Koi ponds lining the side of the drive.  The house itself, nestled back behind some towering shade trees, has a welcoming vibe with a broad covered porch dotted with seating areas of various sizes. The lobby inside resembles an art gallery, stark white with lots of interesting art and artifacts hanging on the walls and placed around the seating areas.

Having made it inside, we talk with the desk clerk, a semi-sullen guy who seems confused when we give him the taxi receipt for reimbursement (airport pick up is included in our room rate).  After a bit of back and forth, we table the taxi fee for later, and sullen guy shows us up to our room in the front corner of the 2nd floor.

And what a room!  It is huge, with a big, comfy king bed, nicely tiled bathroom and the piece de resistance – the oversize balcony overlooking the garden and ponds. We’re excited to be able to have such a large room to relax and hang out in during our stay here.  It’s cool too, because each of the doors (to the hall and the balcony) has interior screen doors so we can keep the exterior doors open if we wanted a breeze.  Of course, unfortunately, that will never happen because there is the heat wave going on here too and it is brutally hot and humid outside. But at least the screens are one more protection against the mosquitoes (at least that is what I was hoping).

 

We get all settled in, then wander out to explore our surroundings.  We’re in a very central location, right next to a Wat, which makes for the peaceful setting, and only minutes away from the night market and lots of restaurants and bars.  Our first stop is the supermarket a couple of blocks away.  Here we stock up on our essentials, then wander back to the hotel checking out some restaurants and bars along the way.  Once the fridge is stocked, we head back out into the gathering dusk to find some dinner, then peruse the night market since we can buy things now that we have no more worries about weight restrictions.

Tonight we are heading to the Ban Lao Beer Garden.  It gets good reviews, is run by an “older” couple who allegedly do everything, and well, heck, if it has beer in its name – how can we go wrong? The place is cute and rustic, a true garden with tables interspersed within rock outcroppings and a pebble path through foliage.  There is a large concrete deck surrounding what looks like a little hut, but which is actually the bar where Mr. Ban Lao works (FYI – Ban Lao is the name of the restaurant, I don’t know what it means, but there are a few places call Ban Lao, so I just took it for the couple’s names!). 

We settled into a table next to the bar, and got the full scope of an operation run quite literally Mr. and Mrs. Ban Lao.  Mr. is behind the bar, Mrs. is out taking orders and serving with a healthy dose of “in a minute” thrown in. She’s really running!  And she’s so sweet too – although when she shows up – you better be ready!  We were, and we ordered our 2 beers along with chicken wings, stir fried pork and peanuts and pork patty meatballs.  Delish – and as always – way too much to eat.

Dinner finished, we wandered down to the riverfront to go to the night market.  Holy cow – this place puts Chiang Mai to shame.  We can’t even tell you how many stalls are here, snaking their way through probably about 1 mile of pathways in the state park next to the river. It was amazing.  And the people.  Swarms of people out walking and shopping – all arriving on scooters – with two huge parking areas – only one of which is shown here in our pictures.

  

The scooter parking goes on almost as far as the night market!  We were excited, we could finally do a little shopping, but that excitement quickly turned into disappointment when we realized that virtually every stall here was selling Chinese junk.  Low quality clothing, shoes and accessories made up the bulk of the stalls.  All those badly translated shirts we’d seen all over SE Asia? All here for the taking.  Any type of knock off ball cap, purse, hat, socks, baby clothes – you name it, stall after stall after stall.  There were pitifully few souvenir stalls, and the ones that were there had the typical mass produced stuff in which we weren’t interested.  We wanted art, or UXO or silk items like we had walked past in Luang Prabang, but couldn’t add to the luggage.  What a huge let down.  It was sort of interesting to see – until the crowds got too much – but not all that interesting.  Bummer.

We salved our disappointment with wine and beer at The Good Earth bar around the corner from the hotel, listening to a rather good guitarist and singer. Then retreated back to our room, trying to sit outside in the oppressive heat (even at night) but the mosquitoes chased me inside, and Ed followed shortly thereafter.  A good night’s sleep was in store for us to prepare us for our sightseeing walk tomorrow.