Vientiane is bloody expensive. It's the capital of Laos and it's probably the most boring capital city i've been to in asia so far. the rent for hotels/guesthouses is ridiculous! we didn't do much here, i don't think, so i'll keep the next few entries short and sweet. too many to catch up on...
ok, so we found this one place that would do. it was clean, had a good bathroom and had a fan. it's all i need. it took landon a day and a half to get over a few minor details. (no window mostly) we also had our guest house get our vietnam visa all sorted out. costly, but as i sit typing in vietnam, worth it. i don't know, nothing really happened. johan, landon and i met sean and jessica again at a sub par mexican restaurant then went to another patio later for a night cap. next day we jumped on a tuk tuk for a long ride out of town to buddha park, which seemed alot more like hindhu park to me, but what do i know? it was pretty neat. i'll have to post some of the pictures sometimes. some are just funny and some are downright freaky. like that big ball with the demon's mouth you could enter. inside the ball are 3 levels until you emerge on the top from a tiny hole. within the 3 levels are heaven (the highest), earth (middle) and hell on the bottom. no lights in hell. when i flashed my light around in the darkness there were statues of large people impaling smaller people and other such torturous things. it was certainly bizarre.
what else happened in vientiane? oh right, joma, that awesome cafe from luang prabang in in the countries capital too, and we.... 'capitalised' on it, often. tasty sandwiches! we also tried in vain to find this chinese market, but absolutely no one knew anything about it. oh well, it was a good wander through the city anyways...
also went to the museum. just shows a recent history of the french colonials entering and being cast off by lao people and russians and americans (americans who bombed the bloody hell out laos). some awesome pictures of a crashed american plane shot out of the sky by a loa riflewoman. basically the museum seemed like a big hate on americans, french and russians.
well, i guess that sums up vientiane. dull, but worth it to know, i guess. next up, savannakhet.