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Hello from Vientiane! We arrived here on Saturday from Vang Vieng via train. We wasted no time on our first day exploring and checked out the river side night market. Unlike a lot of the other night markets we have been to so far on our travels, there were no food stands. The market seemed to exclusively sell clothes and children's toys. This was different to what we had expected and left with a slight dilemma as we were pretty hungry by this point. After a bit of online research we found a food market that we were hoping would have food vendors and not just fresh ingredients. When we arrived we were relieved to see all sorts of food stalls and had fun choosing our dinners.
On Sunday, our first full day in the city, we decided to walk to some nearby temples. It was extremely hot, so we were glad to rest under the shade of the temple's multi-tiered roofs. Once we'd had our fill of temples and Buddha statues, we walked to the Talat Sao morning market. We were expecting a bustling street market, selling raw ingredients for food vendors to purchase ahead of the day's trading. Instead we found it was an indoor market, a bit like a shopping mall, but rather than shop fronts there were rows and rows of stalls selling clothes and fabrics for you to purchase by the meter. We were surprised by the quietness of the market and pleased to find it had air-con! We browsed the stalls for a while before heading back out into the sun. It was now peak heat time of the day and so we quickly grabbed some lunch and made our way back to our accommodation where we could spend the rest of the afternoon indoors. Once it had cooled down, much later in the day, it was more comfortable to head back out and enjoy a walk along the Mekong river promenade that runs alongside a large section of the river. During our walk, it was possible to see the buildings on the other side of the river which were located over the boarder in Thailand.
It was still very hot the next day so we decided to begin our sightseeing before the sun was too high. We visited the That Dam Stupa, Lao National cultural hall and another Buddhist temple. Having successfully avoided overheating the day before, we decided to follow the same structure and hide in our accommodation during peak sun. Then, once it was a bit cooler we ventured back out. This time we spent the remainder of our afternoon bowling in a shopping mall about a 20min walk from where we were staying. Bowling was a bit of a novelty to be doing in Laos, as it's something we associate with home and it was fun to do a familiar activity.
On Tuesday we took a taxi to the Buddha Park and wandered around looking at the Buddhist and Hindu statues, trying to guess the stories behind some of the more bizarre looking scenes depicted by the sculptures. We particularly liked the giant pumpkin-like sculpture that you can climb inside and get a great view of the park from the top. Later in the afternoon, I had to go to another doctors for some more medication. This involved another 2hr IV drip, which seems to be their go to treatment plan, and some more tablets to take away. We were hopeful this time it would do the trick.
The new tablets really tired me out, so I spent pretty much the whole of Wednesday resting and snoozing. Will insisted I accompany him to lunch though, as I needed to eat before I could take more medication. Then, after dropping me back to the accommodation, he headed out by himself for some exploration on foot. He enjoys just wandering around the streets and soaking in the vibe of the city. We planned to have dinner at the food market and I perked up at the thought of looking through all the stalls and picking out what to eat.
It's now Thursday morning and time to pack up and get ready to find a tuk tuk to take us to the airport. We're flying to Hanoi, our first stop in Vietnam, so we're looking forward to seeing what the country is like and how it differs from Thailand and Laos.
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