General overview of Vientiane - Vientiane - TravBuddy

With a short 3 nights in Asia, spread over three different countries, the opportunities to sight-see on this occasion were scarce, though I
certainly now have a list of places I want to return to, and some that
I don't. And one of the latter is Vientiane, the capital city of Laos.

As an aside, Laos has the dubious reputation, as one magazine told me,
of being the world's most bombed country. And interestingly, much of
the bombing 'officially' never happened – during the Vietnam war much
of the Viet Kong supply lines came through Cambodia and Laos and were
systematically bombed by the United States, despite strong claims at
the time that no bombing of these countries ever occurred (sound
familiar?!). Of course the huge amount of unexploded ordinance in
parts of the country and the continuing death and injury toll this
causes provides the proof of what really happened! Cambodia, which
also has to deal with large mine-ridden areas (thanks to the Khmer Rouge), is little better.

I arrived at the very soviet-feel Vientiane Airport after dark on
Monday night, after a most pleasant flight on Lao Airlines' brand-new
chinese-built MA-60 aircraft. It's a pity that this award-winning
(really!) airline is forced to operate from one of the most run-down
and boring places imaginable. We walked off the plane into the
scarcely lit domestic arrivals hall, deserted, with a few plastic
bucket chairs and old wooden tables scattered about. No baggage belt
to speak of – I think the luggage is just spread over the floor. I
travelled with only hand luggage so I managed to escape this depressing scene quickly.

At the arrivals entrance, one is greeted by the usual gaggle of
illegal 'taxi' drivers, a familiar sight to anyone who has travelled much in Asia.

And as one quickly discovers, it is a far more economical exercise to
stick with the legal types, who (generally speaking) don't try and use
every trick in the book to swindle the unsuspecting foreigner. I found
the (legal) taxi desk – well another wooden table with a man sitting
behind it with a handwritten sign saying 'taxi' – and asked for a taxi
voucher to take me to my hotel, the Inter-City hotel on the banks of the mighty Mekong (river). Sounds idyllic!

It probably sounds a bit rich coming from a relatively-speaking
wealthy foreigner, but I was incensed having to pay US$6 for the
relatively short distance into the city, whereas in more touristy and
developed Siem Reap (the town that serves Angkor Wat) the day before,
the regular fare is half that for a far greater distance travelled.

But of course, this relatively short trip to the hotel took a fair while. The road from the airport into town, a major city thoroughfare, is a pot-hole ridden dirt road, negotiated by hundreds of motorbikes,
interspersed with trucks and the odd swanky 4WD for the wealthy. In
their defence, it appears that they are upgrading the road, given that
one of the two carriageways seemed to be under construction, with
asphalt laying equipment and partly laid asphalt on parts of the road.
Not that it stopped people from using it – it must be a very long
process building a road while it is under constant and chaotic use.
And of course the other curious feature, that certainly slows one's
progress through the traffic, is that whilst the road is built with 2
carriageways and with traffic lights at major intersections (well, I
won't exaggerate – I saw two lots of traffic lights), they are totally
ignored. Vehicles travel in both directions willy-nilly on both
carriageways and the intersections are a very Darwinian 'survival of
the fittest' exercise – usually meaning the trucks and 4WDs power
through with horns blaring scattering the swarms of motorbikes in their path.

It was dark, so it was difficult to appreciate the city on the
approach to the hotel. But if the lack of lights on approach in the
aircraft and seeming lack of development on the sides of this main
city road were anything to go by, this sure didn't seem like a capital
city, rather a disorganised medium-sized town in a rather forgotten, land-locked country in Indochina.

The road then swung into the main 'drag' along the river front on
which my hotel was located. Ask for a river room, the website I booked
through suggested, so you'll awake to the majesty of the mighty
Mekong. On checking in and a long winded debate with the manager who
was determined to charge me more than the website indicated (he was
trying to convince me that the Australian dollar amount meant that I
owed him more in USD – essentially the opposite to reality!). I asked
for a riverside room but was told it would be an additional 20USD. I
told him to forget it. It's a pity - this hotel has the location and
the potential. But it didn't live up to it. There were lovely Lao
artifacts on the walls and a very quaint rambling feel to the place,
but the lighting was dim and the rooms decidedly average (with an ant
problem!). The room had a great big aircon unit, but it wasn't
switched on with no remote control – instead I had a hopelessly
underpowered fan unit that took much of the night to get the room
sufficiently cool. What didn't help is that I paid USD35 a night for
the room, whereas I paid $15 the night before in Siem Reap for a clean
and better appointed room twice the size, with free airport pick-up, friendly staff and with a lovely new pool outside!! $35 is a lot to charge in a place like Laos.

I didn't sleep all that well and the sun rises early, so I was dressed
and 'breakfasted' by 7am and decided to head out on the town. This is
probably the best time of day at this time of year (hot and sticky
monsoon season), with the shadows longer and the temperatures probably
5 degrees cooler than the oppressive midday heat. It didn't help – in
10mins flat I was dripping wet with the sweat (I don't cope well in humidity!) but pressed on.

Vientiane is indeed little more than a regional town in feel. And
despite the potential for grandeur, it sadly lacks it, no doubt partly
due to poverty but also maladministration. Rather than providing open
views of the waterfront along the riverside road, there was a band of
unkempt vegetation, which is used by some of the homeless to live,
eat, work, play and dispose of rubbish. Not a pretty sight. And at a
spot where I could see the river, it sadly disappointed – a murky
brown stain on the landscape, neither idyllic nor even very large.
Indeed it looked rather dry – being early in the wet season after a
long dry, perhaps it hadn't 'swollen' to its usual size. And as for
the typical asian bustle of miscellaneous river traffic, always a fascinating sight, the river was pretty much empty.

On the other side of the street are the remnants of colonial opulence
– the Presidential Palace is still in very nice shape, as one might
expect, but several other imposing French-style colonial mansions are
in disrepair, behind crumbling walls and overgrown gardens. And
interspersed is the standard asian fare of 3-4 floor dilapidated
concrete monstrosities of all shapes and sizes, with makeshift
electrical wires, neon signs and washing hanging from upper-floor
windows. The biggest interest lay in the temples that also lay along
this road – kept in good condition with (relatively) cool, shadow
filled and empty courtyards away from the constant bustle of street traffic.

I then headed up a sidestreet, dodging the odd motorbike, to go back a
block to see what I could discover there – big mistake – out of a dark
corner bound two mangy street dogs yelping furiously. There are plenty
of dogs lurking around the streets, but most appear to go about their
own business without hassling the locals or tourists. Well, I never
really want to be attacked by a dog, let alone a street dog in Laos, so I beat a hasty retreat and found another road to go down. It was hardly worth it. One street back felt like the outskirts and anyway most of the road was closed for reconstruction.

I didn't pursue my visit of Vientiane much more than that. It was
pushing 9:30am, I was hot and bothered and returned to the hotel by
10am to squash a few more ants in my room, shower (hot water system
jammed so only one water temperature available – thankfully an
acceptable lukewarm) watch some TV before leaving Vientiane, probably never to return.

I note here that I didn't see all of the city and may have missed some real gems, but if there are choices to be made about where to go in Asia, I wouldn't put Vientiane on the list! I also note that the Royal city of Luang Prabang a bit further to the north in Laos is supposed to be beautiful (it is also UNESCO world heritage listed) and something I
might go back to if I ever head back to the area. Many other parts of
the country are hard to access and are littered with mines and
ordinance (note comments above) and are thus not smart destinations for the unsuspecting traveller.