Em & Tola's Travel Blog

On our trip so far there have not been many places that we have been sad leaving. Mainly because we have always been heading somewhere new and exciting. Halong Bay, however, was one of those places that was really hard to say goodbye to. Getting back to Hanoi was like getting back to reality, after a few days in a fantasy world. Even the prettier and more comfortable old quarter of Hanoi, where we stayed, was filled with people, motorbikes, cars and pollution. It felt like a very dirty and stressful city where everyone wants to earn a buck.

We were very fortunate to find a guest house where the staff felt genuinely honest and nice. It felt like an oasis in a city where people seem to try very hard to scam you out of your money. Our time in Hanoi was spent getting ready and well rested for the 20 hour marathon bus ride to the Laos capital, Vientiane. We had our last Vietnamese "Pho Bo" (Beef noodle soup), and we were going to see the traditional Vietnamese water puppets show, but for the day the theater was closed. Instead we went to see a 3D movie in the city's cinema complex.

We had dreaded the bus ride to Laos for days. We had heard that it would take between 16 to over 24 hours depending on traffic and weather conditions. To our surprise the trip felt like it went much faster than expected. The ride ended up only taking 18 hours. When we arrived it took us and the rest of the backpackers a while to understand that we were actually in Vientiane.

Crossing the border into Laos really felt like we were going in to another country. The road leading up to the border on the Vietnam side was dirty, smoggy, and rainy. Our little group crossed the border on foot, and it was like a scene from the Steven King movie "The Mist." On the Laos side of the border the air felt cleaner, the sun was shining, and the stressfulness of Vietnam felt like it left with the rain.

After the big and bustling Vietnamese cities, we were almost shocked when we explored the city of Vientiane. It is small and clean, there are almost no motorbikes or cars on the streets, and the people feel genuinely friendly. It also feels like no one is trying to take your money. Our heart rates suddenly seemed to drop and we got a lot calmer.

In the city we found a Scandinavian bakery where we had a big cinnamon bun, café lattes and Swedish cookies, swenglishly translated into "raspberry caves" and "dreams." All of them tasted like a dream too.

We also decided to go to a park called Buddha Park 25 km outside town. We got there by taking a local bus, and it was fun to see how the Laos people interact. We also have noticed that a lot of women here are pregnant. The population of 7 million people in Laos will surely grow fast. Buddha Park was a very strange place. In the park hundreds of Buddha statues share a small area of maybe 300 square meters. The smallest of the statues is human sized, and the biggest statue is one that lies down and is at least 40 meters long.

The rest of the day was spent bowling in one of Vientiane's 3(!) bowling alleys. $1.50 for a Beer Lao (the best beer on the trip so far) made the evening. The next place we are going will probably involve some more of that as it is the tubing capital of the world, Vang Vieng.