Heading north to Vang Vieng

Heading north to Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng, Laos, Asia

I got up this morning and was enjoying the air conditioning too much to move. I went downstairs for breakfast, which was awesome again, but they don’t have A/C in the lobby, so it was pretty hot. I retreated back to my room for a bit and packed up all my stuff to get ready to leave.

At 11:30am I left my bags in the lobby and ventured out to see some of the town. I first stopped at the Presidential Palace, but found out that it it was closing in 10 minutes, so they weren’t letting anyone else in. I went across the street to the Wat Sisatek temple, and found out that they also close at 12pm. They close from 12-1pm for what I can only assume is a lunch break for the ticket person. I tried checking out the other temple next to the Presidential Palace, Haw Pha Kaew, and found out that they are also closed from 12-1pm. It turns out all the museums, temples and monuments are closed from 12-1pm every day, so I couldn’t get into any of them.

I headed back to the hotel and waited for the bus to Vang Vieng. It showed up at about 1:50pm, and it was a crappy old minivan. I had paid 50,000 kip ($6) for a VIP bus, so I was a little surprised to see this thing pull up. The drivers threw all of our bags up on the roof of the minivan and tied them down with a bit of string, and we drove five minutes before stopping on a side street. The drivers told us to get out and switch to our real bus, which was luckily a very comfortable mini bus. It was also only about half full so we had a bit of room to stretch out. We hit the road at about 2:45pm instead of the scheduled 2pm, but that was alright. I had a few things to watch on my laptop, so the time flew by pretty quickly.

The scenery was nothing special until we got closer to Vang Vieng, and then I got to see how beautiful the Laos countryside can be. There were huge mountains of rock just bursting out of the ground in really random formations and they made for a spectacular backdrop. We drove through the sunset so it was a little difficult to take pictures that can even come close to representing how beautiful it was. We pulled into Vang Vieng at about 7pm, just late enough to miss the sunset, but still light enough to easily find our guest house.

The three of us checked into Popular View Guest House and I am very impressed with my room. I have a big double bed all to myself, with A/C, private bathroom and my own balcony overlooking the river. It was already a little too dark to appreciate the view, but from the silhouettes of the mountains, I’m expecting a pretty good view in the morning.

I found the room where Olivia and Haidi are staying and we all went out for some dinner. The bars/restaurants are so strange. There aren’t chairs and tables, there are beds with loads of cushions, and a table for you to eat at. People are all just lounging around watching one of two shows, depending on the restaurant. Half of the places are showing Friends, the other half are showing Family Guy. It’s brilliant! The girls hadn’t had their fix of Friends in a while, so we found a comfy place that was showing Friends and settled down for some dinner.

The food here is pretty cheap, and it was good. I had sweet and sour chicken with rice and a BeerLao for 38,000 kips ($4.50). We chilled for a bit and I found myself falling asleep, so I went off for a walk around town. It really is a tiny town and 15 minutes after I’d set off, I’d circled back to where I’d started from. I’m a little surprised at how quiet the town is. I thought it was going to be party central, but all the partying must go on during the day on the river. I’ll find out in the next couple of days.

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