Vientiane, Laos

I feel like every other post I start by apologizing for taking so long since my last post… Anyway I can’t believe how long it’s been since I last wrote something. It started to feel like I used to in school again. Anyone know what I’m talking about? When you fall so far behind on class reading or something that it makes it less appealing to do because there’s so much of it to catch up on? It was getting so daunting how long its been since I last posted but then I really thought to myself that a few years from now it will be nice to look back and re-read about my time away. So here I am, I’m back! And hopefully within these next few weeks I can catch up on everything to present day.

I cannot believe how many months have gone by… So last thing I was writing about was back in May. The Bangkok airport had given Harrison word that his missing backpack was at the airport, so we arranged to head back south to pick it up and take a flight to Laos instead of taking a bus from Chiang Mai. After we had already booked our flights we found out they didn't actually have his luggage so we were basically backtracking for no reason. But hey, that's how backpacking goes right? You can almost never expect anything to go to plan.

May 13th

I remember when Harrison and I arrived in Vientiane and we got in a cab to go to our hostel (Dream Home Hostel) and I was MIND-BLOWN that the driver of our cab was on the left side of the car. I had gotten so used to having the driver on the right side that it looked so wrong. I was so exhausted because Harry and I took a bus, and overnight train, and then waited at the airport for like 6-7 hours before our flight, so by the time we got to Laos we were both pooped.

After Harrison and I dropped off our stuff in our room, we walked down the road to find food, and Harry could not get over how cheap everything was compared to Thailand. Honestly, there wasn’t much to do in Vientiane, it seems like the city is slowly getting renovated and re-fitted for tourism, there are parts were it was super run down, and then there were parts that were pretty much brand new. Like the night marketplace by the riverfront, it was a super lovely location, and had so many stalls. But somehow the whole place just seemed empty.

So in Vientiane we spent most of our time at our hostel. The first night we met an Australian traveller from Perth, Sam and he introduced us to some older men who were some real characters. One was an ex-pat from Arizona or something and was living in the hostel for however many months now, and the other was a New Zealander ex-army guy who would go detonate bombs found left over from the wars (might have their stories mixed, I can't remember). After chatting up the hostel guests and drinking a few beers we all went to a local spot dinner. When we got back, Harry and I sat at different tables trying to be social with other hostel guests but I was so tired I hardly said anything at all to the group of English boys at my table, they were playing a confusing card game where each card had a different rule and I couldn’t be bothered to try to learn it, plus they all had basic short boy names and I couldn’t keep straight who was who. I could tell I wasn't being very good company and I think I eventually gave in and went to our room to catch up on sleep.

After a long day of travelling, we had an early bedtime to try to recoup. However, our hostel roommates had other ideas. In the middle of the night we woke up to a group of rowdy boys stumbling into the room, swearing, and yelling at each other with no sense of common courtesy to those who were sleeping already. At this point I was wide-awake, annoyed, and the air con wasn’t working so I was basically drowning in a pile of my own sweat praying they would STFU. About an hour of all those wonderful “hostel noises” and conversation went by and they finally went silent. And after a long struggle with the heat I eventually fell back to sleep.

Our hostel had breakfast included, which was nice that we didn’t have to pay for anything and look for anywhere to go first thing in the morning. After a long morning of walking around the city and finding that the one thing we wanted to do (go to the history museum) was closed down for renovations we decided this city had nothing and we would book a bus out the next day.

Guys, Vientiane is literally so boring I have exactly 2 pictures from this city, one is a picture of a sign I saw in the bathroom of a pizza place Harry and I went to. Pomodoro Pizzaria is the “best pizza in town” run by two brothers and if you’re nice they might let you play Fifa or GTA with them while you wait for your pizza to cook.

The other picture is of the beers we were drinking after our long morning walk, at Chokdee Café a Belgium Beer Bar… The pictures are so bad and boring I don’t even want to post them here…

To be fair, there are some beautiful sights to see in Vientiane, somehow Harrison and I managed to talk ourselves out of seeing these landmarks and temples. I think we were too lazy to rent bikes? I think my biggest regret from this city is not going to see Patuxai and Pha That Luang.

But I think we were just a little templed out after Northern Thailand, and if I remember correctly, it was hot AF the two days we were in Vientiane and we were really off-put leaving the area where we were staying.

The second night, the same rowdy boys, came in late waking us up. I finally recognized basic boy names from the English boys that I met playing cards while they were yelling at each other, punching and jumping on each other’s beds. Are you kidding me…? Two nights in a row? I was about to tell them to shut up but they finally settled and luckily the air con was working this night so I just dozed off while thinking how grateful I was to be leaving this hostel in the morning.

As Harry and I jumped on the shuttle to go to the bus station, the three boys from our room stumbled out of the hostel, also catching the same bus as us. Great… And off to Vang Vieng we all went.