Sights & Sounds of Vientiane, Laos Part 1 of 2

One of the captivating aspect of Vientiane, Laos is the beautiful architectures, I am not talking about their modern buildings but the beautiful temples and monuments that was created very very long ago that still survived til this day. Some people asked me whether it’s advisable to take a tour package to visit all these places and my advice would be, Yes, if you want a structured tour of Vientiane and not getting lost. It would be the safest way to travel and see the beauty of this city. Personally, I prefer to get take my own time to see these places and to keep my cost low, I rented a bike for the duration of my stay there.

A brief background on the city,Vientiane is known locally as Viengchan with a population of 600,000. It’s a city where you won’t find much towering sky scrapers. It is a change especially coming from a country where all you see when you look up towards the sky are tall buildings. Currency used there are Kips (their local currency) but you can also use USD at the shopping centers and restaurants. Do note that Kips are worthless outside of Laos so change only as much as you need or remember to change back to USD or your local currency before leaving the country as you won’t be able to trade the Kips outside of Laos. If you kick off your tour, most important thing to have even when you have a Tour Guide with you is to arm yourself with the maps! It’s not that the Tour Guides are not reliable in Vientiane, it’s about taking charge of where you want to go and what you want to do. After all, you paid for it right? As for those touring by themselves, it’s about not getting lost and know where you are going. The maps really helped me a lot in planning my trips. Be prepared for a very long post with a lot of hi-res photos after the jump.

I started my journey at 6 in the morning as I ventured into the outskirts to observe some of the daily practice that’s still going strong where families will come out to the roadsides to wait for monks on their daily walks to provide food to the monks. From the older generations to the youngest of child, that’s what they do every morning. Unlike most monks in modern city that only goes around asking for money (by the way, if they do that, it only prove one thing. Those monks are FAKES), these monks would walk barefooted, chanting prayers as they go and stop at each kneeling person to receive the food and give them a quick prayer/blessing before they continue on their walk. Observing them as they go about their morning ritual, it just gave me that calming sensation. I talked to some of these families after the monks have walked by and they were surprised that as a tourist, I would get up so early just to watch this daily activity being practiced. They don’t normally see tourists coming out of their hotels any time earlier than 8am.

The first landmark I visited wasn’t very far, in fact, it was just outside the hotel I was staying at. It’s the King Chao Fa Ngum’s statue located at the park just in front of the Novotel Hotel. This statue was built back in 2003 to honor the Lanxang King. Every morning around 5am, I can see the locals coming out to do their work out in front of this statue and pay respect to the statue while they are there. This statue is truly the Lao people’s pride and you can see it in their face when you ask them about it.

Another similar statue located near the Vat Si Muang is the King Sisavang Vong Statue. The statue was created to honor the French-installed King who ruled over Laos from 1904 to 1959 during World War II and, somewhat reluctantly, the country’s independence after the war. The statue holds a palm leaf manuscript supposed to represent the country’s first legal code. There is no plaque identifying the statue. It was “lost” shortly after the 1975 revolution that toppled the old royalist government.

The next landmark that every tourist entering Vientiane would not miss is the Patuxay. Located prominantly on Lane Xang Avenue opposite Vat Sisaket, it was built during the sixties to the “Arc de Triomphe” of Vientiane to imitate it’s Parisian cousin but ornamented in Lao style. You can get a view of Vientiane from the top of the Patuxay for a fee but if you are ask me, I’d say don’t waste your money.

From Patuxay, due to the distance, I’d say the next best location to go to is Vat Xieng Khuang or known popularly among tourists as the Buddha Park, don’t let the name fool you just because there’s the word Vat in it’s name. Located 27km from Vientiane near the Friendship Bridge linking Laos and Thailand, this is not a temple but a park where tourists and locals goes to. Built by a monk, the collection has since grew to what it is at present and visitors entering the place have to pay to get in to view the collection of statues there. There is also a little restaurant where you can sit down and have some food as you look out towards the Mekong River and Thailand.

As you head back towards Vientiane, try to stop by at the local village as there are quite a few interesting things for you to check out, from their local desserts to some interesting household wares that I believe was transported from the other side of the Mekong River. Also, if you are interested in buying some herbs and spices, it’s a lot more cheaper than the market in Vientiane itself.

I ended my journey of the 1st day of my travel feeling rather tired from the distance I covered by bike, with bags and bags of food I brought a long the way. It was a very interesting journey but it’s also not the end as I will post about the other place of interest from around Vientiane in the next post. To end this post, I share with you now a very interesting performance I managed to catch on the last night in Vientiane where a man, with just the power of his vocal chords, is able to imitate sounds of animals and birds and act out a story using just that. With that, do check back for the 2nd installment in this 2 part posting as I shall be posting it up very soon.

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