A Day In Vientiane
The morning three-hour tour of Vientiane (capital of Laos) was going to pack a lot of sites into a short period of time because the flight to Phonsavan left in the afternoon of this same day.
Off to visit Wat Siskanet, the Victory Gate, That Luang Stupa and Wat Ho Prakeo. Wat Ho Prakeo, next to the Presidential Palace, was the home of the famous "Emerald Buddha" (it is carved from Jade not Emerald) that currently is displayed in the Grand Palace, Bangkok. It was stolen by the Thais from Laos during a war in 1778.
Wat Sisaket had over 6,000 other Budda images (every one of them is ritually cleaned during the Lao New Year), was built in 1818 and is the oldest surviving temple in Vientiane. As soon as I saw the beautiful interior lined with Buddha images, a defunct brain cell revived and I remembered it from the 2000 trip. How I could forget something so beautiful is baffling...
...and along with all the Buddhas, there was a Burmese style old temple, and extremely gorgeous frescoes inside.
There was a permanent checker table set up outside and the people used bottle caps (Pepsi and others) as checker pieces. Wasn't that clever?
The Victory Monument resembles Paris' Arc de Triomphe. And during the day, it can be climbed.
The That Stupa was a disappointment to us... View image...Fairly new and crowded with tourists, ex-Marine and I jumped into a tuk-tuk and went to see the Morning Market...another disappointment, filled with primarily new goods, and after the "plethora of products" in Luang Prabang, a place you can easily skip.
So much for flying to Phonsovan this afternoon. When the group arrived at the airport, Sue discovered Lao Aviation had substituted our scheduled piece of aircraft for a small plane that Explore considers "unsafe" and is against their policy to fly on. After quite a bit of back and forth between Sue and Lao Aviation, Lao Aviation agreed to schedule a flight for 11:00am tomorrow. It was back to Vientiane and the Hotel Lao which was perfectly o.k. with us. It gave more time to explore Vientiane, another wonderful little "city" with terrific restaurants AND massage parlours. We had a wonderful dinner at Le Provencal, on Fountain Square (the fountains don't work)...visited the Scandinavian Bakery for excellent desserts...
...watched a peddler with his bike and little cart making the rounds with flowering and green plants for sale...
Vientiane was definitely a keeper...
