Bangkok Thailand to Vientiane Laos

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 Vientiane

A last look at part of the Bangkok skyline from the balcony of our room. After happy hour, we did go back to Cabbages and Condoms for one last dinner. Excellent meal for about $20. We've upgraded our restaurants a little bit. As Tim said in Sihanoukville, some of his Khmer friends wouldn't go to some of the beach shack restaurants we went to because they're too dirty. There are lots of nice clean restaurants available everywhere if you pay a bit more. Of course, we still don't look in the kitchen.
Bangkok was interesting but it's a very busy city and all cities have some commonality. The little we've seen of Thailand so far is much more developed than Vietnam or especially Cambodia. The Americans never invaded Thailand and destroyed its economy or social fabric. Lucky for the Thais.
We arranged a taxi to the airport through our hotel for 500 Baht (about $15). Good deal since it's a long way and the expressway tolls were included. Even at 6:45 am there's quite a bit of traffic in Bangkok. Nevertheless, we got to the airport on schedule, checked in in no time and joined the line to get through customs. This time it wasn't too bad - only about 20 or 30 minutes.
We wandered through the airport (for the 4th time) and found our gate with an hour to spare. Our flight to Vientiane only took 70 minutes and was quite pleasant. It was actually a rush to eat the light breakfast they gave us and fill out the visa-on-arrival forms and entry/departure forms. However, when we arrived and got into the visa-on-arrival line, it only took a few minutes to go through the process, pay $43 each and get our visas stuck into our passports. Then it was only a few minutes to go through customs. The customs officers actually smiled at us like we were human beings. It gives a far better first impression of a country to be treated civilly by the first people you meet rather than being snarled at like you're a criminal causing great inconvenience. Some Canadian border guards could learn a thing or two.
It was only $7 to get a cab to our hotel, the d'Rose. Vientiane is quite small and compact. We should be able to walk everywhere we want to go. Our hotel is centrally located only a few blocks from the Mekong River. There's lots of restaurants around. Our room is huge and very nice. There's no in-room safe, just a locking cupboard but we're not expecting a crime wave so it should be okay. Vientiane is very safe by all reports.
The hotel is costing us less than $60 per night and includes what looks like a really good buffet breakfast in the dining room. It's a nice old French style hotel.

This is our room with door out to the balcony. Unfortunately, all we can see from the balcony is the wall of the ugly building next door. After we settled in we went for a walk to find a light lunch and orient ourselves a bit. We had a Greek salad and hummus wrap at JoMa Bakery Cafe a couple of blocks away for only 50,000 kip (about $6.50). We had gone to an ATM to withdraw some Laotian kip which we'll need for the next week and a half. It gets confusing with different currencies and large numbers. But 8,000 kip is approximately equal to one dollar so we'll be dividing by 8,000 every time we're trying to price meals. A BeerLao tallboy costs 7,000 kip. Not bad.

We took a little walk around town and I couldn't resist this picture of scaffolding holding up the formwork for a perimeter concrete beam around this building. I'm sure it works but a Canadian safety inspector would probably have a heart attack. This is a typical example of local empirical knowledge or "That's the way we do it around here", as I was told many times early in my carpentry career. I trust the Laotians more than I trust some of the valley lads.
We didn't last long on our walk. It must be at least 35C although not as humid as Bangkok. We'll cool off in our room for awhile until early evening when it's tolerable to go out for dinner. Gotta love AC.