For some reason which I cannot remember, we decided to ask James for advice on where to go. James has never been to Laos, but of course he had a recommendation!
We were very hungry after our huge lunch at the Xiengkhouang airport just hours before (the wearing off buzz and the 45 minute flight made it seem like 8 hours, when really it was more like 2). So we set off for the Vientiane streets to try and find Makphet. I encourage you to visit the website and read about what they are doing. It's totally awesome.
We had no reservation for dinner, and didn't really expect to get a table, and after getting lost for twenty minutes, found out that there were in fact no tables available for the evening. But then the manager said, Well you can sit upstairs if you want, but we don't really have enough servers for you and you will not enjoy your experience.
He seemed so apologetic, but we rather had our hearts set on eating here. And looking around the room, it was clear that we had beaten the dinner reservations (it was only about 6:00 PM or so), so we decided to eat upstairs!
Not only was the service great, it was some of the most attentive service I have had at a restaurant, ever. Our food was served promptly, yet we were not at all rushed. And we had the entire loft upstairs to ourselves, which was nice - we could just spread out and relax. After the Phonsavan escapade, a nice meal was really all we wanted.
My favorite dish was the water buffalo stew. Really a step up from the low quality of beef in South East Asia.
The rest of the food porn from this meal can be found on my facebook page. This was truly a delightful meal, and exactly what I needed. So good.
This was our only night in Vientiane, so after dinner we walked over to the night market on the river. Te night market is clearly the happening place in Vientiane. Everybody was out on a Tuesday night with perfect weather. We walked down the steps getting closer to the Mekong, and I had one of those moments of reflection staring out across the river to the Thai side. I didn't have all that many chances to stop and think about the last month, but it dawned on me that I had arrived in Thailand a month ago, already, and that this trip was almost over. I was getting so used to the quirks as well as the friendliness of the Lao PDR, and heading back to Thailand, even if it was just passing through, already felt "normal", as if I was returning home...
...but the ambling through Vientiane was not yet over, as we walked up the riverwalk and saw the big statue dude:
It's basically a statue of a Laotian farmer holding his hand out to greet you, and honestly, I think it's a nice representation of the Lao locals we ran across in our 9 days here. Everyone was just so friendly.
Walking back to the market, we may have decided to be those nerdy tourists who went on the swing set and teeter-totter that just happened to be there. Photo evidence exists on a camera that isn't mine. We'll see when Jesse or Gabe posts pictures *nudge nudge*.
After that, it was bedtime. zzzzzzzzzzzz.
We woke up bright and early to go explore the city some more. We only had until about 3:30 PM until the journey back into Thailand began, so it was up and at 'em.
You have to keep in mind that Vientiane is the only "big city" in all of Laos, and really it's population is similar to San Francisco proper (JUST the city). But the "big city" vibe here is akin to what I'd feel the "big city" vibe is like in Fresno. Vientiane just isn't a very fast moving place. There's not a lot of big tall buildings, stuff is fairly spread out, and the pace of life isn't that quick.
Our research prior to the trip suggested there wasn't all that much to see in Vientiane, and in hindsight, there's probably some truth to these reviews. It's a really nice city, absolutely worth a stop if you're in the area, but unless you just love visiting wats, there's not too much to do in the capital city itself - the adventure lies in the country's interior, as I hope my blog has aptly described!
So for most of the morning we did in fact walk around and look at wats. Wats are really pretty, and Buddhism is a fascinating philosophy, but after awhile, the wats start to blend together into some sort of wattage.
Our aimless wandering happened to lead us in the right direction for touristing. After stopping in a market to buy a loaf of bread (which was promptly devoured), we walked up what was unmistakably the country's widest road, towards the Laotian Arc de Triumph.
But first, the other best sign of the trip:
Once we arrived at the structure, we walked up the stairs to get a view of the entire area. As I mentioned before, Vientiane is pretty spread out, so the city seemed to expand infinitely.
We had time for about one more tourist stop in order to save time for my one request in Vientiane, so we tuk tuk-ed over to the main tourist attraction, That Luang. I guess after going to Doisuthep in Chiangmai, That Luang wasn't quite as impressive as I'd hoped, but I suppose it's still pretty cool!
In all reality, I was starting to get rather hungry and dehydrated, and really wanted to make sure we had time for the final stop before we left Laos. That's right, we had to have lunch at Hungry Burger! And as it turned out, we did have enough time, since it was reasonably easy to find and close to our hotel. Feel free to read my review (yes that's right, I have a blog about cheeseburgers!) of this oddly Portlandesque food cart!
But after a taste of home, it was time to leave Laos. I'll spare a lot of the details, but it was another small fiasco filled with changing vehicles, language barriers, and overall general confusion. One moment of note was that we shared a songthaew with a bunch of Aussies who had clearly just come from Vang Vieng (the tourist party town 6 hours north of Vientiane). They asked us why we would ever skip Vang Vieng on a trip to Laos, and went on to explain that it was such a cool time - only 14 ODs in 2011! OK, so I admit, I did kind of want to spend a night in Vang Vieng, but we only had so much time, and I couldn't be happier with how we allotted that time.
Eventually, we took the only train in the entire country across the border into Nong Khai, Thailand. Here's a final view of the Mekong, denoting this part of the Thai-Lao border:
After crossing the border, we found a place with Pad Thai across the street from the train station, and we all chowed down before boarding the overnight train to Bangkok.
Actually, the overnight train was pretty nice. I took my first sleeping pill, and was comfortably sleepy the entire night. I actually quite enjoyed the experience, and would totally take a sleeper train in Thailand again, should I have more time than I did this time around :)
I'll throw in one more story here, since there is a bit of a travel day at this point in the trip. When we arrived at the Business Class lounge at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, we all took nice warm showers. I then promptly went in sandals, a t-shirt, and shorts to sit in the lounge which understandably had the AC blasted. Long story short, I gave myself the chills, and spiked a fever on the plane. Fortunately, I was pretty confident that I had self-inflicted myself with chills, so I didn't worry too much about the symptoms (except when the Manila Airport informed me of mandatory temperature checks - which never happened).
I also got my worst case of bad food at this point too. I can only assume it was that the tasty lounge food had been sitting out a bit too long, or wasn't cooked enough, as I felt quite sick the next couple of days. I was proud of myself for not freaking out too much, given the awkward timing (getting the chills/fever at a similar time to a case of food poisoning). Logic works, self! :)
But I won't leave out the free Thai massages that business class travelers receive. They hire the best of the best. What an absolute treat.
So that concludes the Laos portion of my trip. I still can't believe I went there, and I wonder if I'll ever have the opportunity to go back (and if so, who knows what it will be like!). The days were winding down, and it was almost time to come home. But first, a completely unexpected Manila experience!
