Lao PDR

With a few days to kill last week we decided to heat up to Vientiane.



We spent several days in the Lao capital on our RTW in 2002 and loved it. On that trip we also went upcountry to Vang Vieng and the phenomenal Luang Prubang, but with the country's primitive roads and our limited time we decided just to hang out in Vientiane this time.



We caught a night bus from Bangkok which wound through the heartland of Thailand. It was a very uncomfortable 12 hour ride to a town just before the border, where we pulled into a nondescript lot in the predawn.



When the sun came up the bus took us to a sort of restaurant where we were handed immigration slips for the entry to Laos. We checked out of Thailand, no problem, and changed busses to cross the bridge and enter Laos (Laos drives on the right, Thailand on the left, hence the bus switch). At the Laos border post we had to apply for visas, and the line long, and to kill time I wandered over to the ATM machine.



I've marveled before on the incredible convenience of ATM machines worldwide. Card = cash. I stuck the card in this one and asked for 1 million kip (sounds incredible, I know, but it's actually a pedestrian $120). The machine crunched around for a while, seemed to hesitate, and then went blank.



And took my card with it.



A minute later the machine revved up, and a messaged flashed on the screen, in Lao, French and English: "Initiating startup procedure. Standby."



I guess I started to go into a sort of public panic, because a Lao porter wandered over and said something to the effect of "this machine, many card, bye bye."



But in true Lao fashion he whipped out his cell phone, dialed a number and handed the phone to me. It was the People's Development Bank 24 hour hotline. A man on the other end, in broken English, told me I could collect my card the next day at the downtown location.



Whew. And I actually got it back.



Forays into thirdworld banking systems aside, Vientiane is a nice place (but hot as hell). It's a national capital with a mere 230,000 people, decided lowrise, noticeably French, primitive yet sophisticated, and full of intrigue and great food. Russians, Cubans and Chinese mingle on the streets.



You can speak French as easily as English (in many ways, some 55 years after Bien Dien Phu and their ouster, the French seem to be gaining a cultural and political foothold here). And almost every restaurant features espresso, thincrust pizzas and steak au poirve for $6 in addition to a healthy wine cellar.

We saved $4 a night by staying in a hotel which once had been pretty spiffy but unfortunately had not been cleaned or renovated in the last few decades. We drank coffee. We ate pizza.



I had battered deep fried lemongrass -- a memorable meal. We visited the city's incredible wats with sacred Buddhas. We walked along the Mekong and took shelter during some unbelievable thunderstorms. We spent $30 a day!