Mysteries Solved, Useless Information and a Busy Day in Vientiane

 Hey All,

First a shout-out to my Niece and the girls at the Montana DPHHS in Bozeman, loyal blog followers for a couple of years now. Things must be really slow in Bozeman this time of year to find me interesting, but hey, I hope you enjoy my little corner of the web. Maybe I will do a blog signing at the Laundrymat some day. Love you guys for real.

 

The little street where my hotel is located

 

 Well, a little about Vientiane, the capital city of Laos. About 7 years ago I visited northwestern Laos with a 4 day stop in Luang Prabang before moving on to Cambodia, and its changing in this country for sure. In the past, Laos was mainly a backpacker destination to places like LP, Vang Vieng and Si Phon Don (4,000 islands). For the most part it still is, but not as undiscovered as it used to be, much to the disdain of the backpacker community. Vientiane was mainly known as the Sleepy Capital of Asia, but the government is trying its best to change that. The are trying to bring this place up to par with other capitals, but they have a big road to hoe. I spent a long time walking yesterday and even though the riverfront is new and building up with nice hotels and such, the rest is still living back in the old French Colonial Days, which with a facelift and fresh coat of paint would be a treasure in my book.

 

I also noted that whenever you see a Lao flag hanging, there is a red communist flag hanging next to it. I guess they are the last country I know of still flying the old Hammer and Sickle flag.

 

My little hotel is down a side street and surrounded by 3 hostels, so you get an interesting crowd walking down the street, (Katie :) ), I love the true backpacker crowd. Right down the street is a newish wooden building that has the old wild west saloon doors and a sign stating bar and restaurant, but alas, they have a sign saying they are closed for 2 weeks for vacation. Too bad, that sounded like fun. The internet here is very sub par compared to Thailand, but no surprise. It took me about 4 times as long to get the blog done and downloaded. The more pictures I try to download the slower it goes.

 

Lao Tuk Tuk's

 

 Up this am early, slept good though, the mattress is not as hard here, but the hot water was very luke warm which I hate. I decided to see if I could locate where the statue park is in Laos, and sure enough its about 30 km outside of Vientiane. I went down to hunt for a tuk tuk which is not hard to find as there are several that hang out in the street here. I gave my key to the lady at the desk and she asked what I was up to today. She told me that is a long ride and back in the bench seat of a tuk tuk and I had to agree. She said the hotel has a van, and nobody is scheduled for pickup at the airport or train station, so she made me a great deal on its use with a driver for about 4-5 hours.

 

She made a quick call and in a few this nice van pulls up and out steps this huge person, they reminded me of those football players from Samoa and Guam that have no neck and can bench press a Toyota. I say they, because they had long black hair and a voice 2 octives above mine, It just did not go together. I think its the Pat syndrome, I was never sure if they were male or female, so I will refer to them as "they". They were a good safe driver and dropped me off very close every time, too bad they did not understand a word of English.

 

Sculpture at Buddha Park

 

 At times I can be a curious type, little things bug me and I want to know the answer. I had heard about this statue park in Laos and how cool it was, but when I found the one in Nong Khai, curiosity got the best of me because the proximity of the 2 did not make sense. I had to check out this place today and see if it was something different altogether. It took a while to get there as the roads outside of Vientiane are sub par and that's a compliment. Soon we went under the Friendship Bridge and I realized we were heading down the Lao side of the Mekong River rig ht across from Nong Khai. I noticed some landmarks and had them pull over, and I was able to spot the Mut Mee across the river, took a pic of course. We traveled on not very far and there was a sign that said Buddha Park. Paid the 5000 Kip and the first stop was a building with some history. All of a sudden, it all fell into place. It told the story of a young man who fell into a cave and was found by a famous Hermit KeoKu, who mentored the young man. (This raises many questions, like what qualifications are there to be a hermit? What mentoring skills does a hermit have? I could go on and on) But to keep the story moving, he started sculpting these statues at the Buddha Park in the early 1950's and kept going until he had to flee the country in 1978, does not say what he was fleeing from. He crossed the Mekong River to Thailand and continued his work sculpting statues at what now is the Statue Park outside of Nong Khai. So both parks were done by the same guy, but the Thailand side was done later in life. The best part is they showed a pic of him, and I swear its the same dude in the pic I put on the blog, the one where my finger is across the top. He sure looks one in the same.

 

Story of Sculptor, there is longer history in the Museum

 

 My favorite of the statues is the big pumpkin looking one that has 3 levels. The bottom floor is supposed to represent hell, with nasty scary people and souls screaming for help. The 2nd level is today on earth, there was a sculpture of me in my Lazy Boy, While the top floor was heaven. It was very very narrow and I almost did not squeeze through and too dark for pictures, so you will have to take my word on it. There is also a mixture of statues like a 3 headed elephant, that are definitely Hindu in nature, so not sure the correlation of the Buddhism and Hindu, but that is another curiosity for another day. There were some that had meaning when you took the time to see them, like one where this person is dressed in fancy garb and someone is behind them kneeling with their hand out. You know this is in reference to not ignoring the poor. Then there were some that were downright bizzare. But, I did like this place and glad I made the effort to get here.

 

Sculpture with 3 stories for Hell, Earth, Heaven. The head looks like a giant Chia Pet.

 

 They drove me back to town and next stop was this very old temple built in the late 1700's if I remember correctly. Its made of teak wood and very beautiful. It was said that when the Kingdom of Siam (Thailand now) invaded this area, that it burned Vientiane to the ground except for that one temple, so it survived all these years. For those of you who are old enough to remember the movie, "The King and I" with Yule Brenner, he played the king of Siam.

 

One thing I noticed were several large signs with the communist logo and the number 60, so gather they are celebrating 60 years of communist rule. Well, not to get too geo political here, but as far as I am concerned there are no true communist states anywhere. China, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba all claim to be communist, but lets face it, they are not, good golly, China has a stock market. Lenin would roll over in his mausoleum. That brings back a favorite memory, touring Saigon, Vietnam with a young college student. He was asking me all things about America, just so curious and wanted to know every little detail. At the end of the day, I looked at him and asked a simple question, "why does Vietnam refer to itself as a communist state?" He thought for a minute and with a big smile he said, Communism at the start of the 21st century is nothing more than "Capitalism without Democracy" I could not have said it better myself.

 

 

 

Next it was on to this huge Stupa called Pha Thatluang. Its huge and very impressive except it could use a fresh gold paint job. While there, this line of people came in and they were carrying a couple of sticks of burning incense and some gold colored flowers. They walked in single file line, holding the incense like they were praying and circled the Stupa a couple of times before climbing a staircase to a Buddha statue and placing the incense in this container and putting the flowers on the Buddha. It was interesting to see. I saw several photo shoots going on while there too. It must be a popular background.

 

Pha Thatluang

 

 Last stop was Patuxai Monument. Now this very out of place, giant slab of concrete has an interesting story from what I have read. It looks like the Arch de Triumph in Paris for what that is worth. So the story goes, in the 1970's after the end of the Vietnam War, the US I guess felt guilty for bombing the hell out of Laos. Time for you to do some homework on how the geography of the region played a role in Laos getting involved in the Vietnam War and the secret war in Laos, that to this day the US states never happened. Back to the story at hand, the US felt guilty and gave the government of Laos a boatload of concrete to build a runway. Well, the Lao's decided to built this monstrosity instead, giving this the nickname "The Runway". I am so full of useless information, but I have to get it out or it backs me up like a block of cheese.

 

The Runway

I told "them" to head on back and I was going to walk the area, and look for some a late lunch since I was starving, it was 3 by this time. Found this hole in the wall, and got Pork Laap with Sticky Rice. Now this is more of a Thai dish, but I guess the proximity is so close, the food follows. This pork and spices cooked with onions and ginger, then they add fresh mint leaves at the end. To eat this, I was told you take bit of the sticky rice, make a ball of it then press with your thumb and make like a small spoon out of the rice, which you then grab some of the Laap and mint leaves and eat with your fingers. I must say it was delicious and the fresh mint leaves were the surprise in this dish.

 

 

 

After I ate this I started meandering back to the hotel, which took a while since I got turned around a bit. By the time I got to my room, my feet were barking so bad. I had to lay down and prop them up for a bit. Might have to head in for a dip in the pool.

 

I have several other things I wanted to tell you, but geez, this has gone on long enough. I will try to fit them in tomorrow.

 

Before I go, I wanted to address an email:

 

Someone asked about the scammers at the border crossing trying to sell Lao Visas on the Thai side, that I ignored. Well, they were not really scamming, as they are legit Visas. The issue is that you pay $50, instead of the $35 like I did right across the border. You are basically paying a $15 service fee for no reason. They want you to think its a huge time saver, NOT. I saw several people following the touts to the office, but hey that's what they get for not doing their homework. Land border crossings are notorious for scams all over SE Asia.

 

Happy Travels,

Don

 

 

Lady Selling Birds, you buy and set free, for good luck, its a Chinese thing.