The Taste of Vientiane
Saving the ‘best’ of my Vientiane post for last and the best I’m talking about is food! The major importance whenever we travel to a foreign country is to try the local dishes. Right? Sadly, when you follow tour guides, they tend to bring you to places where you eat food you can always eat back home.
The 1st night I arrived in Vientiane, the only place I went to was Nazim Restaurant where they basically serve Halal food which is really not what I like. Everyone who knows me well knows that I love my porks and Halal restaurants don’t serve pork. Well, can’t really do anything about that since I was there with some colleagues. Left with no choice, it was the Tandoori Chicken that I choosed. You can read more of that in the previous food post. (more…)
Sights & Sounds of Vientiane, Laos Part 2 of 2
Here is the continuation from the previous post on the place I’ve visited in Vientiane, this place I visited was located on Lane Xang Avenue with it’s entrance facing Ho Phra Keo, it’s the only temple to survive the Siamese invasion and popularly known as Vat Sisaket to both locals and tourist. The Vat or Temple holds several thousand statuettes of Buddha of various sizes while funeral urns was placed along its walls.
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. (more…)
Off the Beaten Path in Vientiane, Laos
In this 2nd installment of my visit to Vientiane, Laos, I’d like to bring you back in time, in time to the age where modern technology has yet to have it’s influence to the way of life.The place I’m talking about is called Dane Song, about 30km from Vientiane on the Luang Prabang Road. My initial plans to go there was to visit some of the caves near Dane Song (advisable to go there with a Scrambler bike as you won’t have a comfortable journey moving about with an underbone motorcycle or more popularly known as ‘Kapchai’ in Asian countries.)
About 22km after I left Vientiane on the Luang Prabang Road, I turned off at Ban Hua Khoua (it’s just a small 2 lane road so follow the arrow as you can easily overshoot that junction). Turning off the main road towards Dane Song is like heading back into the past. 3 Decades in a so called modern city known as Kuala Lumpur was thrown out the window as village with zero modern technology (except for the huge satellite dishes) start to appear. (more…)
Setting Sun over Mekong River
The 1st set documenting my holiday in Vientiane, Laos. I am not touching on the places I’ve visited for now but share with you some of the beautiful sun sets I’ve seen along the Mekong River on the 4 nights I was there traveling.
At certain parts of the river, the Mekong was so dried up that we can practically walk on the river bed and that is exactly what I did. The locals have made some small path that allowed them to go down to the riverbed to play and that’s exactly what I did as well after finding such a path. Getting the sunset from a high ground was nice but being in the middle of the river and getting closer to the beauty of it was just breath taking. (more…)