Feb 15th:
We woke up at around 08:00 and packed up the last of our things and headed down the crazy flight of stairs for the last time to grab a free coffee in the lobby and wait for our bus at 09:00. The same shaggy looking dog was sitting on the same table, smelling of shampoo so as wifi wasn't connecting, i passed time by drinking coffee, smoking and engaging in a staring competition with the dog. There was a row between the woman at the desk and a backpacker. Apparently he hadn't paid for his room yet and they were effing and blinding at each other "you steal room! You steal room!" She kept repeating and he was shouting back at her about not being told to check in blah blah blah. There was a large group of people waiting in the lobby and i figured that they must all be for the same bus. When the bus pulled in, dan and i were adamant to sit together. Nothing grinds my gears more than when solo travellers sit in a place where two seats are instead of the individual seat. So we handed over our back packs and claimed two seats near the front. There were more and more people piling onto the bus that backpacks were being squeezed under seats instead of in the back. It got to around 09:20 when some people had to get off, including the man who was shouting at reception, to get onto another bus. There was plenty of leg room and general space which i was pleased about.
After around an hour driving, we stopped off at a service station to use the toilet, stretch our legs and visit the shop. Most people opted for cornettos as it was a bit of a weird shop selling all sorts. We all boarded back onto the bus and continued our journey to Vientienne. I was able to write some of my blog as well as read my book. The journey took around three hours altogether and it wasn't long until we had reached our destination. The mini
Bus stopped on a road with a few guesthouses so we all piled off the bus and collected our back packs that were hauled out by an american traveller, we thanked him and made our way to find a place to stay. The first place we went to charged 70,000kip for a double room for one night so we were handed the keys to have a look at the room but realised we didn't have our own private bathroom so we went onto the next place to see what they had to offer. It was the same story, 70,000kip for dublr room and a shared bathroom, we would have to pay 120,000kip for our own private washroom which didn't seem worth it so we went back to the first guesthouse "Deoung deuane" and paid for three nights. I was excited to experience the shared bathrooms as well so i didn't mind too much. The room was quite small however and you could hear almost everything from the other rooms, the walls were paper thin.
After setting our bags down in the room, we were off out exploring and looking for somewhere to eat lunch
As we had both skipped breakfast. All the cafes and restaurants were pricey compared to what we would usually pay. And they were all over the shop. After looking at loads of different menus we stumbled across a place which reminded me of a big pop up cafe. The menu was displayed out front, hand written on a big board. They offered the usual, pad thai, fried rice, noodle soup and beer, all reasonably priced so we went inside and took a seat. It was a big area with tables and chairs and a young boy handed us menus. It was like an extension to the family home, two young kids were on the floor serving whilst the mum was in the kitchen. I ordered chicken noodle soup, dan had duck and rice and we both shared a papaya salad. After eating, we settled the bill and decided to visit the temple just next to us. It cost us
5,000kip per person for entry. It was very much like all the other temples we've seen although this one had fat, laughing Buddhas as well as the traditional ones. Inside the temple there were cut outs in every wall where two mini Buddhas sat, there must have been around 300 in total.
After the visit to the temple we decided to have a stroll around town to see what Vientienne had to offer. We passed a camera shop and i checked the prices incase the old bag of rice trick doesn't work. We came across a shopping mall type thing which was really just the one shop selling naff pieces of clothing. We found an in-shop type place and decided to look inside as i was on the lookout for some concealer. We came across a shop that reminded us of pound stretcher/makro/costcutters. They sold everything. I spent a while in the beauty section where they were selling fake mac blushes and fake perfumes alibg with shelve after shelve of skin whitening lotions, masks and soap. We ventured upstairs where they sold culinary equipment as well as clothing. I spotted a fake prada saffiano which was so SO tempting but put it down eventually. We made our way back downstairs to get chocolate and pay. I had decided against buying the concealer and it was when we got outside that Dan surprised me with it.
We found a cafe where we could sit outside with a mixed fruit smoothie and watch the world go by. After the smoothie we went into the book shop right next to it to see what they had to offer. I was pleased to see that they had the book that i had wanted to get in luang prabang "bared to you" by the same woman who wrote fifty shades of grey. I'm trying to stay away from books that include heartbreak or death of a family member, anything that can potentially make me home sick and depressed. Knowing they had the book, gave me more incentive to quickly finish the book i'm currently reading.
We went back to the guesthouse to shower and read some more of our books. We had a smoke before heading out again to find somewhere to eat, we knew this would take us ages. After trawling the streets we decided to check out the night market where we thought we might find some food. The market was massive with a long line of red tents and locals nestling underneath shopping. The market sold no food or drink, mainly clothes, shoes, handbags, jewellery and the rest. So, we decided to walk to the other market which sells only food. Once we got there, there was a lot of food on offer but nothing to heat it with. It was more of a market where you buy bowls of curry and then go home to heat it up. We decided against eating there but had a good look at what they had to offer. We left and looked for a cafe to have dinner. We found one with seating outside so we sat down and ordered. We both had a chicken baguette and a plate of chips to share. I finally got to try the green coloured mirinda and to my delight it tasted like the "blue cloud" ice cream that ross' ice cream shop used to sell. The flavour on the can is described as "green cream soda". They weren't wrong about the "green" adjective as it looks like radioactive horse piss- but tastes AMAZING! Feeling full up, we walked back to the guesthouse and read some more of our books, smoked and slept ready for a full day tomorrow.