Vientiane

We arrived in Vientiane and began our usual struggle of trying to find somewhere to stay. Enquiring at a few places and finding everywhere was at least 50% more expensive than anywhere else, or only the price for a single dorm bed, we decided Diana would wait with the bags whilst I went for a hunt. Returning, all I found out was that Vientiane was more expensive than we expected, or at least it certainly was in this area. We settled for one which admittedly came with luxuries we weren't used to having frequently, such as air conditioning and a fridge.

Unsure what to do now we were settled, we headed out to a place Diana was very interested in seeing called COPE visitor centre, a rehabilitation centre for amputees and people who had suffered from cluster bombs left over from the Vietnamese war.

Taking the 'scenic' route through this concrete jungle, passing all the French style middle class eateries, we stumbled upon an interesting pagoda located in the middle of a roundabout. Unfortunately we were a little out of love for pagodas at this stage of our trip, so we took a couple of photos and wandered onwards.

The roundabouts are a bit fancier than at home...

Our next sight was of a pet shop, which wasn't a particularly pleasant one as puppies were tightly cramped into cages, without any water on a 30+ degree day. Asking the woman to give them something to drink as they were clearly dehydrated, the woman poured a tiny amount of strangely pink liquid into a small bowl, which the puppies proceeded to fight to get anything they could. Another dog in the adjacent cage saw this and started yelping as it was clearly thirsty too, and it wasn't enough she gave the others. In an act of rebellion as the woman refused to give them any more, Diana poured the remainder of our water in to the cage, which the woman saw, ran over and threw out immediately. Short of having a fight in a language we didn't know, or getting arrested, there was little more we could do and carried on towards the visitor centre, more agitated than we had been before.

We arrived at the visitor centre and were greeted by a museum explaining what they did, and how the situation has come about. After the Vietnamese war, many cluster bombs had found their way over the border and into Laos, many of which are still unexploded and buried to this day. Examples of prosthesis used were on display, along with documentaries, photos and diagrams of cluster bombs and how they were detected.

An OT in her natural environment

As we were ending our look around, a man approached us and asked us where we were from and if he could talk with us a while. He was from a village near Vientiane, 26 years old, had lost both hands and all of his sight and seemed desperate to meet a European girl to be his girlfriend, he was quite fussy about her hair and accent though, and he thought a girl from Lao would be too much work. His English was quite good, and he seemed shocked by how tall I was. 

As we were leaving we spotted an indoor sports hall for people with disabilities, where they had just started a game of wheelchair basketball. Nobody seemed to mind us watching, so we ended up spending quite a while watching and feeling impressed by their agility (and their abilities to get themselves back in their chairs when they inevitably fell out of them.

We headed back towards downtown, spotting a shopping centre along the way and figured we’d have a look about. For some reason, they were having a huge promotion on Plants VS Zombies, which I figure would have made my mum very happy due to her slight level of obsession for the game. Unfortunately, we couldn’t justify travelling with stuffed toys, so we left them where they were and just posed next to a few of the statues they had dotted around.

If you look carefully, Diana is in this photo.

We reached downtown and headed towards a night market we’d heard about. At first, it seemed there wasn’t a lot to see, only food related things (although now we had a fancy room with a fridge we took advantage and bought some of the yoghurt they had on offer). We soon realised the path carried on a lot further than we had first anticipated, and sure enough we were plunged into a standard South East Asian market scenario, all the bootleg gear you can imagine, plenty of mobile phone cases and accessories (I have no idea what they sold before phones became as popular as they did, I imagine streets were considerably more empty) and various clothing that immediately got Diana’s attention.

The next morning we tried to say we wanted to stay another night, but alas, our room was booked and we would have to move rooms. Seeing as this was still the cheapest place in the area, we agreed, but no more fridge and a significantly less maintained room overall. We’d had worse though, so we sucked it up and worked out a plan for the day.

We’d heard about a nearby attraction called ‘Buddha park’. Somewhat Buddha’d out, but apparently unmissable for the area, we rented a scooter for the day and set about it. Me on directions and Diana at the handlebars, the way there was fairly simple, pretty much a couple of little turns  and one main road. We arrived, not entirely sure what to expect, paid to park our bike and our entrance fee.

Greeted by a huge ball with windows and a stone tree growing out the top, we were already unsure exactly what the place was about. All around were various different Buddhist and Hindu sculptures, in no apparent formation or reason, like an outdoor sculpture museum. Upon inspecting the ball sculpture closer, a huge open mouthed face appeared as an entrance, so we took a look inside. The rooms went around the circumference of the ball, going both up and down stairs, with various different sculptures within. We were able to climb all the way to the top to get a view over the rest of the park, and I managed to bang my head on multiple occasions trying to climb up and down all the odd staircases.

Entrance to the sphere. Om nom nom.

Overlooking the Buddha park

We had a quick picnic of the sandwiches we’d purchased before hiring the scooter and carried on up the road, as we’d read there was a national park somewhere around, many kilometres away. Unfortunately as soon as we carried on along the road beyond the Buddha park, the road quickly deteriorated, turning more into a gravel track and dust than an actual road. Unfortunately it was quite a few KM’s on this type of road, so we took it in turns until we reached the main road again, trying to avoid the potcraters and huge puddles along the way.

Eventually we made it back to the main road, however, we didn’t really know what we were looking for. Vaguely following the map towards the National Park, we reached a split in the road where we weren’t quite sure where to go, and needing fuel anyway, stopped at a fuelling station to try and ask for directions. We just about managed to pronounce the name of our destination correctly, and were pointed along the way we suspected. Off we went, followed by a huge truck, through a closed barrier everyone seemed to be ignoring and swerving around.

Get your moto' ruunnniiinggg...

A sign post stated that somewhere ahead was a waterfall, so we figured we’d head towards that and see what we could find. By this point we’ve been on the bike for over an hour in the hot sun, so we’re getting a little fed up but hoping we’ll find something worth it. After maybe 15 minutes of going down this dirt road, with absolutely nothing around us (almost like a disused quarry site rather than a nice national park) and no signs, we’re debated turning back as we figure it must have been a turn we missed. We stop and get ready to turn back, when the truck catches us up and points to me, then onwards up the road. Figuring he’s guessed where we’re heading and it’s not far away, we have one last attempt to get there, only to find we were about 400m from another sign up a side road to the waterfall we’d been looking for. Nodding and giving the truck driver a thumbs up, we headed along the road, Diana about at the end of her tether but we’d come so far we thought we’d give it a go, not knowing what to expect as we’d read nothing about it.

What we found though was pretty awesome. We parked up and must have been the first foreign people to the area, as we found out it hadn’t been open for long and the time it had been open it was barely advertised other than in Lao. The area was full of Lao families and friends sat at the side of the waterfall, picnicking, drinking beer and swimming around. Overheated and the sight of the nice cool water, Diana wasted little time hopping in and having a swim around, some of the clearest water we’d actually seen in Lao after being fairly disappointed with the ‘Blue Lagoon’.

As Diana was bobbing around and cooling down, a slight smile on her face after the ordeal of getting here, I was called over by a group of Lao men and women. At least, I think I was, they spoke no English and I spoke no Lao, but I went over and we mimed some things at each other, next thing I knew a glass of ice cold beer was in my hand. They pointed at Diana, indicating I should get her up to have a drink too, and soon enough we were drinking with a group of Lao people, doing our best to communicate which wasn’t too straightforward but everyone was laughing at the attempts. I made the executive decision to stop drinking (much to everyone’s disappointment as they kept thrusting more glasses of beer in my hands) as one of us needed to ride back, which we just about managed to explain in hand gestures to them. They then gestured picking up a motorbike and putting it in the back of a pick up truck (we think) so I could carry on drinking, which we declined as seeing the state of them all I figured they probably weren’t the safest hands to be driven by.

A waterfall with only two white people around!

Diana now a little tipsy and darkness starting to set in, we rode back (narrowly avoiding running out of fuel and too stubborn to buy an ample amount for when we handed back the rental bike.) The next day involved very little action, just preparing to hop on our longest bus of the trip so far, a 28 hour trip over the border to Vietnam, Hanoi.

All of our photos from Laos - Vientiane can be found here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/132802327@N02/albums/72157661182337840