Groundhog day in Vientiane, Laos

Wow folks,

It's been way too long without an entry - apologies for the delay. I spent 4 weeks in Laos after all, and ended up having a 'groundhog day' experience for 9 days running in the capital: Vientiane. For you Europeans, Groundhog day is a USA 'holiday' and a movie where Bill Murray's character ends up experiencing the same day over and over again....

Met so many great people in Laos - it made up for the absence of traveller friends in Thailand throughout September and October: Owen and Hannah from Galway; Anton from Holland; Nicola and Jodie from Scotland; Kim, Mal 'n' Barb from Australia, Rory from Monaghan, Tricia from London...all fabulous folks each of whom I was sorry to say goodbye to. I can only look forward to seeing you all again! Anyhow, the slowboat along the Mekong is THE place to make friends on your way into Laos, so ignore the chumps and DO it!

In Vientiane, I arrived with Mal 'n' Barb. Checked into Douang Deuane hotel for a whopping $20 per night but did so as I was gagging for a bath. It's been 3 months since I've enjoyed the timeless necessity of a bath and really, the whole cold shower thing had long lost it's adventurous flavour. I luxuriated in my bath for a whole 20 minutes and was quite surprised (and pleased in a way) to see that I left a ring of grime around the tub afterwards!

Vientiane as a city is not remarkable. There are a couple of things to keep the tourist busy - That Luang, a huge, gold stupa situated on a high point in the city; Victory Monument, built in 1957 (similar to the Arc de Triomphe but in Khmer style) by the French; the national museum (which I'm ashamed to say I never made it to in 9 days...) and various wats (temples) around the place. The big draw is the Mekong river, across which you can see Thailand. Having said goodbye to Mal and Barbara, who headed south, I now had Anton from Holland and Dominic from Melbourne to hang out with and hang out we did! We went up to a rooftop bar each evening to see the sunset across the Mekong (photos included here) river and ended up going for dinner and then beers until curfew time (midnight) each evening. When Dominic had left (sob!), Owen and Hannah came along. Owen's grandfather and my Dad were both in the UN armed Peacekeeping forces in the Congo in the early 1960's, and as it turned out, knew each other! Ireland is a small country as you can see....

Owen and Hannah are two of life's good people and so we ended up hanging out for a few days in Vientiane together. I couldn't get enough of their company. Equally, Jodie and Nicola were wonderful company and it was easy to while away the hours with any and all of them. Between the three of us, Anton and few others, we kept ourselves well happy and entertained. Needless to say, the same thing occurred every day - ambled around the city by bike during the afternoon, met for sunset in the rooftop bar at 5pm; took photos of sunset; easy conversation poured forth endlessly and the rate of beer consumption almost matched that. Dinner was had, a select bar would be visited and then we all made it home to our respective guesthouses by midnight (mostly!). Only to begin again the next day....

I finally broke away on the 8th of December and made my way back up to Vang Vieng (successfully avoiding the endless re-runs of Friends and the alcohol-fuelled tubing) to explore more caves for a couple of days. Some of the most gorgeous scenery exists here in Laos. Flat rice fields punctuated by dramatic sheer, limestone towers in which have been eroded hundreds of karst caves, many of which are fabulously explorable without the necessity of a guide.