Girl Talk: Tranquil Vientiane

After five weeks of travel we arrived in our second capital city in SE Asia, Vientiane! Once the epicenter of Indochina and highly influenced by the French from their temporary imperialistic control of Laos, we were shocked upon exiting our rickety bus at how laid-back this city is for a capital. With 300,000 people Vientiane is filled with wats, boulevards, French cafes and seven-year old Mercedes.We expected to stay a day or two but got sucked into this black time hole for four days.

Seeing it was Sunday, and absolutely nothing was open, we were forced to take a day of rest. To your good fortune we spent our day at a Scandinavian cafe writing your postcards and blogging. We also visited by foot the National Palace and two wats (Buddhist temples). The Haw Pha Kaew houses antique Buddhist artifacts including sculptures and paintings. Gabi was inappropriately asked out by the on duty attendant after he followed her around the wat pretending to sweep the clean floor behind her. She was invited to a disco tech for that night and luckily he offered a friend for Lisa as well. Crossing the street we entered Wat Si Saket, the oldest temple in Vientiane, built in 1818. This wat contains more than 2,300 silver, ceramic, wooden, stone and bronze Buddha images. Many of these sculptures date back to the 15th and 16th centuries.

In the heat we continued up the road, passed the U.N. building and the post office to the Lao version of the Arc Du Triumph. The arc was built in 1969 by the Lao government using cement donated by the U.S. originally intended to build an international airport. Tragically the U.S. airport donations were not enough for the monument and the structure has yet to be completed. The park surrounding is widely used by locals for leisurely activities. We joined the crowd by taking a minute off our feet to rest on a park bench.

That night we had dinner at a street food stand along the Mekong River. We would return three nights consecutively to order the same meal, sitting at a folding table with plastic chairs. Each dinner we devoured pad thai, a deliciously spiced fried rice ball, a fresh grilled white fish from the Mekong and a plate of sauteed vegetables. mmmm... round four, Gab and Lis?

We awoke to renting cruiser bikes and navigated our way to to the U.S. Embassy. Gabi was successful at paying $82 USD to add pages to her passport, while Lisa talked to her Lao counterpart from EducationUSA and visited the student advising center. Afterward a visit to the morning market included a view of a boar head, slabs of pure fat and beautiful silk textiles. Biking six km we reached the Wat Phat That Luang, the most venerated Buddhist Temple in Laos. Towering 85 meters, the golden museum serves as a symbol of both the Buddhist religion and Lao sovereignty. The surrounding wats were gorgeously filled with colorful depictions of Buddhist scriptures with brightly orange robed smiling monks of all ages roaming the vicinity.

Exhausted and hungry we stopped by a local night market for hors d' oeuvres of homemade sausage, liver skewers and hombow rolls before making our way to our famed waterfront food market. Upon leaving the market a tragedy occurred.

Moments after opening a fresh bottle of red wine, we headed across the street with a plastic cup of wine in hand and the bottle in Lisa's purse. As usual we crossed slowly dodging passing vehicles, as pedestrians don't have the right of way. Just as Gabi screamed "look out!" Lisa realized that two motorbikes were upon her. She stuck her right arm out, hooking the bike console and falling to the ground with the bike and driver. This caused the other bike to fall as well. The wine splashed everywhere but miraculously the bottle did not break. Instinctively Gabi shrieked in pure terror "Lisa, get up!" and at that moment Lisa realized she was on the ground in the middle of the street. She stood up shocked as the bikes were already driving away. Her white tank top covered in red wine and ripped made her appear bloody to onlookers. She luckily only suffered a few scrapes and bruises and a cut up pinky toe.

Twenty-five km SE of Vientiane on a grassy field along the Mekong River, we arrived via tuk-tuk at the Xieng Khuan, meaning spirit city. This monument is a park scattered with Buddhist and Hindu sculptures built in 1958. Designed by a yogi-priest-shaman, Xieng Khuan merges Hinduism and Buddhism. Lisa limping and Gabi walking, we climbed into the mouth of a sculpture which led us up winding staircases to an expansive view of the park.

After a giant vegetarian buffet lunch, we headed to the Lao National Museum inside a run down french building from the 1920's. This is a book you can judge by it's cover. The 16 rooms exhibited a wide variety of topics from dinosaurs to national historic artifacts to wars with the French and Americans. While informative, the museum, covered in cobwebs and typos, left much to be desired for a national archive.

Our last stop in the capital city was the Cope National Rehabilitation Center, an organization dedicated to deactivating bombs left behind by U.S. troops and supporting victims of unexploded ordinances. Laos is the most heavily bombed country in the world. An estimated 260 million bombs were dropped on Laos between 1964 and 1973, of which 78 million failed to explode. Each bomb casing held 860 bombies, which if detonated correctly could destroy an area the size of three football fields. To date 12,000 people have become victims of these unexploded bombs.

At Cope we took advantage of free videos MAG has created to educate locals and tourists about this tragic phenomenon. With donations received, Cope provides rehabilitation and prosthetic limbs for victims of the leading causes of accidents in Lao; UXO (unexploded ordinances), motorbike accidents and leprosy. Some of their patients have gone over 20 years living with homemade limbs ingeniously made from wood or scrap metal before reaching Cope. Despite the painful topic, the Cope Center was a very enjoyable place to visit, with upbeat informative staff and jovial patients greeting visitors.

While we were not victims of UXO or leprosy during this trip, we came close to returning to the Cope Center after our second motorbike incident on our way out of Vientiane. After enjoying our favorite bowl of noodle soup to date in SE Asia (mmm.. thick homemade noodles), we boarded a tuk tuk on the highway en route to the bus station. As usual, the driver immediately started texting while driving. Within moments he hit a parked red hatchback, whose driver was standing beside the car. The entire bumper was ripped off. Our choffer stopped in the middle of the road to asses the damage, leaving us stranded in traffic and we immediately fled to another tuk tuk. Needless to say, this is a stark reminder to NOT TEXT AND DRIVE for all you cellphoneholics.