Day 28 - Sightseeing Vientienne Day 1

All of our quick decisions yesterday when picking a guesthoue came back to bite us in the ass this morning. We had picked a guesthouse right nextdoor to a building that was being demolished. At 6am the rock breaker started ... bang bang bang bang ... over and over again. There wasn't much sleep once this started and we very quickly made the decision to change guesthouses. The very first thing we done was pack up and head back out on to the main street again where we booked into the previously full Soukchaleun Guest House. We seen straight away why the guest house was always full, it was reasonably priced, very clean rooms and very professional about all the services it supplied. About 10 minutes after checking into the guest house, it was already full again, at about 11am in the morning!

Once we got settled into the room we went for breakfast.

There we decided to take a brief trip around the centre of Vientienne and see all the touristy sites. To be honest it was more of the same stuff that we've seen in any country so far. A few wats/temples some historic buildings and a few monuments.

On visiting one of the monuments we did come across a hairdressers. Both Caroline and I had been complaining about our hair getting long and with the warm weather it was becoming annoying so in we go to get a couple of haircuts. It was a different haircut for me, for a man who normally goes to the barbers and gets a quick dry cut, no fuss or hassle, here I was getting my hair washed, my head massaged and then a haircut ... a much more 'rounded' service than i've had before! The haircuts turned out to be a god send, becauuse we noticed the difference straight away when we left the hairdressers.

After tramping around the city centre for the day we returned to the guest house to relax for a while before heading for dinner that evening. We found a lovely restaurant beside the Nam Phu water fountain again and had dinner there. The menu choice was very wide from most common European dishes, to traditional Laos dishes as well as Chinese and Vietnamese dishes. For desert we actually tried a 'Traditional Laos Desert' which consisted of Dragon Fruit, some kind of cold savory yogurt and a few squares of a tradional Laos cake. It was quite nice overall but a little too savoury for me!

One thing that has been annoying me since the start of my travels is the number of male europeans/westeners who all have a much younger Asian girl hand in hand with them everywhere you look!.

This restaurant seemed to be a haven for them because at one point there were more couples like this at tables than normal/traditional couples. The table next to us consisted of 1 Italian man and 4 thai/laos/asian girls. He would of been in his 40's or 50's and the girls would all of been under 25. They even rotated their seating positions during the evening do that they all got to sit beside the 1 man. I know that I am applying my standards/culture in a foreign land and that's not exactly appropriate, and I know that I don't fully understand the situation as it stood last night but it still really really annoys me. It just doesn't seem natural, to me anyway.

Anyway enough of my ranting and raving, after what was a lovely meal, bar some of the other clientielle, and after a few more beer Lao we headed back to our new, much quieter, guest house!