Deb's Adventures in Asia 2011: March 2011

Thursday, March 31, 2011 at 7:00 PM | By: Deb

VANG VIENG

View from my balcony.

I left Vientiane this morning and took a bus about 3 hours north to the town on Vang Vieng...complete with my life's most traumatic spider experience in a rest stop outhouse bathroom: the thing was massive, scary looking and I inadvertently bumped into it's web with my face...I managed to escape without screaming bloody murder but I still get the creeps just thinking about it..eek.
The skies are blue and it is hot and sunny for the first time since I left home...finally broke out the shorts and sandals

Vang Vieng is a gorgeous, picturesque, sleepy rural town with steep limestone cliffs jutting up in every direction. and the Mekong running through it's middle. The view from my balcony is simply stunning and I've been out here enjoying the sunset while listening to local kids play in the river below to the song of crickets and birds chirping in the background.

I got here around 2pm so had a bite to eat then headed out for a little walk...right below my hotel there is a bridge that take you over the Mekong river and into the caves. I didn't go so far as the caving but had a lovely stroll through the trees. Tomorrow I'm going on a day tour that takes me caving/hiking/kayaking and finishes up with some tubing down the river! You could easily just hole up in this little town for weeks just soaking it all up!

Wednesday, March 30, 2011 at 9:03 PM | By: Deb

BUDDHA PARK

The rain finally let up around 10am today, thankfully, and it turned out to be a really nice day...light clouds, warm but not too hot, the sun was almost poking through but not quite.
It was a good day for an out of town adventure.

I went to Buddha Park, or Xieng Khuan, which means Spirit City. It is a sculpture park about 25Km outside of Vientiane in a meadow beside the Mekong River. It was created in the 1950's by Bunleua Sulilat who was a scuptor and an eccentric spiritual leader with his blending of Buddhism and Hinduism. It is a bizarre mix of over 200 Buddhist and Hindu cement sculptures in various shapes and sizes...complete with this huge pumpkin shaped creation that is 3 stories high which is supposed to represent hell, earth and heaven. You can climb it by crawling in the demon's mouth and then twist your way through these narrow steep staircases through 3 levels of circular rooms filled with more bizarre sculptures. It ultimately spits you out through a mouth at the top and a great view of the park.

The wierd pumpkin!

View from the top of the wierd pumpkin!

I decided to take the public bus because it was cheap(about 60cents each way) and seemed easy enough...If I can survive an Indian train station I can surely navigate a Laos bus station. I figured there would be more tourists on the bus so I'd know I was on the right bus, in the right direction, but they must have all been in the $20 tuk tuks because I was the only white person on there...feeling not entirely sure it was the right bus(there are no route numbers on the buses (and a lot of buses)so I just asked around for bus 14 until someone pointed to the one I finally boarded. I knew that Buddha park was supposed to be the last stop before it turned around so figured I couldn't really miss the stop. Thankfully, I made it to my destination in about 45mins, enjoyed about an hour in the park and just as I ventured out to wait for the bus to show up again it was literally just driving by, spotted me and stopped...such timing!

I finished up my afternoon with an hour long foot massage for $4...seriously, cheaper here than Thailand. The girl gave the best shoulder massage after!

Tomorrow morning at 10am I am taking a bus to the city of Vang Vieng which is a couple hours north of here. Hopefully the weather improves...Unfortunately, there is the worst flooding and mudslides in 30 years happening in southern Thailand right now. Ko Phagnan, the island I'm supposed to go to in 6 days, is shut down as is Ko Samui and the airports/trains in and out. Tourists are all trapped and I guess the Thai Navy had to rescue tourists in the hardest hit areas... It doesn't look like going there is an option at all night now. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do....I guess even Railay beach is under water and Krabi was hit by massive mudslides so that isn't an option either. I was supposed to spend 9 days on Ko Phagnan and have plane tickets/train tickets both ways purchased already so I will have to figure something out in the next couple days. I was really REALLY looking forward to 2 weeks on a beach!!!! Hmmmmph....that sucks. It really throws a wrench in my plans, if I wasn't planning on spending so long there it wouldn't be such a huge deal but I can't really spend 9 days in Bangkok just waiting around for my next plane to leave...ideas anyone? Maybe I'll head to Malaysia early and bum around... I'll keep you updated!

Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 10:27 PM | By: Deb

VIENTIANE, LAOS

Sleepy downtown Vientiane

I'm writing this right now from a cozy restaurant in Vientiane while eating dinner and watching the rain fall outside. I have yet to see a drop of sunshine since I left Calgary! I had anticipated being in shorts and flip flops frequently reapplying suntan lotion for the last couple days but nature is not cooperating. It's not cold, low 20's maybe, but definitely not hot.

Yesterday in Bangkok I slept in, had breakfast then made my way on the BTS skytrain to my dentist appointment at 1pm. I wasn't sure what to expect but, wow, that dentist office was out of this world. There was actually a grand piano in the waiting room! It was pretty cool, the dentist used this camera wand and took pictures of my teeth which he then broadcast in high def on the TV hanging on the wall so we could discuss them in technicolor detail. Then he used a mold to make an imprint of my teeth for the night guard and told me, to my amazement, to come back in 2 hours to pick it up! This seriously would have cost me $500+tax and taken several weeks at home. I paid approx $70 and waited 2 hours here in Bangkok. The night guard fits great but I was unsure if I would actually be able to sleep with something in my mouth...I popped it in before bed last night and slept for 10 hours with no problems at all, it actually felt kinda good, like it was giving my teeth little hugs.

After the dentist I was feeling jet lagged so I curled up on a comfy couch in the lobby of the hostel I slept at the night before and read until 7pm when I had to start heading to the train station to make my night train from Bangkok to Nong Khai, which is a small town in Thailand right beside the Laos border, and my entrance point into the country on the way to Vientiane.

My first order of business upon entering my train cabin was the frantic slaughtering of the cockroach who dared crawl up the wall of my sleeper compartment....the thing would not die! It just got angrier and ran faster. Eventually I prevailed and removed it's carcass from my sleeping area. I don't usually have to kill bugs and am clearly untrained...when I was a kid I would put some sort of receptacle over them and have my father remove them from the premises in the morning, as an adult I just suck them up with the long telescopic handle of my vacuum cleaner and let them fight it amongst themselves gladiator style in the vacuum bag...the whole killing process is rather traumatic, especially when you can feel their exoskeleton crunch under your shoe!! Anyway...post bug carcass removal, I had a great night. I sleep like a baby on trains! We got into Nong Khai only 2 hours late (good by Asian train standards) at 10am. They have an immigration desk at the train station where they stamp you out of Thailand, then you get on another train that takes you over a bridge into a small train station in Laos just across the border where you can get a visa on arrival and then are left to fend for yourselves a route into Vientiane, which is about 30km away. I ended up on a public bus for 20baht that dropped me at a bus station in central Vientiane then from there I shared a tuk tuk with 5 other people from the train for 20baht each and he drove around dropping us at our respective hotels. I love my hotel! Its really nice and I'm pleased with my choice of location! I skyped the parents to provide proof of life and then hit the town!

I quite like Vientiane. For some reason I thought it would be a big dirty city and was prepared to hate it but it's completely charming. It has a laid back quiet vibe to it despite the fact that it's a good sized city. Big flowering trees overhang most of the streets, temples poke their heads out here and there, you can really feel the French influence from it's colonial days. The downtown city center area is really enjoyable to stroll around in and it's right on the waterfront(the Mekong Delta) Even the rain just made it more atmospheric. Thankfully, it was just a really light drizzle, nothing even worthy of an umbrella, well, not until after I got back to the hotel at 5pm. Hope it slows by tomorrow.

First order of business today was lunch...as it was 2pm when I left the hotel and my last meal was 6pm the night before. I had a yummy veggie/noodle thing and a latte at this cozy little cafe then went on a sight seeing mission!

I just walked in a big loop hitting the sites I wanted to see.

First off was Wat Si Saket. It's Vientiane's oldest surviving temple built in the early 1800's. It's a really neat temple as it is covered with over 10 000 Buddhas...the walls have tons of little niches that hold little tiny Buddha's as well and there are 100's of seated Buddha's sitting on rows of shelves that run around the temple. Some of these Buddha's are really old and come from the 1500's. There's also a huge room loaded full of Buddhas found around Vientiane that were damaged during wars in the 1800's.

Rooms full of buddahs damaged in war

Next up was Pitaxai...it looks kinda like the Arc De Triomphe and sits in the middle of a large traffic circle. It was built in the 1960's with cement that was supposed to been used to build a new airport. You can climb it to the top and get great views down onto Vientiane.