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So today would ultimately lead to the event Laura had been dreading...... The 24 hour overnight bus ride to the Vietnam capital, Hanoi. We decided to put this to the back of our minds and enjoy a leg toning bicycle tour around Vientiane.
We packed up and checked out leaving our bags at our guesthouse which acted as a deposit for the bike rental. The bikes were somewhat shabby to say the least, mine looked like it had a run with a large truck. At least it went straight albeit it made an awful squeak on every other revolution of the pedals. I had however one partially working break so that was something.
We made a quick stop at the mini-mart to purchase much needed anti-perspiration, yes not deodorant, does absolutely nothing in these climates.
Now we avoided smelling like a teenage boy's bedroom so we headed off around the various one way systems. We passed various modern looking wats and obvious French colonial architecture. The first real landmark was the
Patuxai... literally meaning Victory Gate or Gate of Triumph, it is a war memorial supposedly reminiscent of the Arch de Triomphe in Paris. I can see why you would think that but perhaps a very distant cousin with a poor gene pool would be closer to the mark.
We decided to have a climb up through the structure which was basically a market full of stalls on every level, they were everywhere were money potentially can be made even in the small rooms at the top. The view from the top was pleasant, although the structure is not that tall so the view is hampered by tree lines and newly built office blocks which have dwarfed the horizon. You can not even see the Mekong river to the south from here unfortunately. We continued on the bike ride which was all in all, fairly underwhelming. The city doesn't really have an aesthetically pleasing feel to it and compared to even Phnom Penh, lacks charm. It isn't quite sure whether to hold on to its French colonial routes our turn into classic communist concrete urban jungle you often see.
By this point Laura was desperate for a much needed coffee (minus the ants) and we headed back to the tourist centre and the various French style cafes. We stumbled onto one with very reasonable prices which was obviously very newly opened. The owners were local and lovely, the place was run by a friendly older lady and what appeared to be her son and his heavily pregnant wife and it even had much needed air conditioning. Laura ordered the Lao style coffee and thankfully received something which looked like an upside down Guinness in a beautifully clean glass and a brownie... her first bit of chocolate in a while. The wifi was a nice little bonus as well ensuring the ants had been well and truly forgotten.
Our next mission was to obtain food for a bus ride tonight as we would be on it from 6pm tonight until approximately 6pm the following day. I did hazard to guess the road side stops in Vietnam would produce some over inflated tourist prices. The kind cafe owner pointed us into the direction of the morning market which was in easy bicycle reach, so off we went 'Tour De France' style once more (minus doping of course).
The morning market was bustling as you would expect for Asia and we paid the parking fee for our bicycles, yes I know!? Just before arriving however Laura spotted a lady walking past with pole sling across her shoulders. She was selling rice pots which the locals use to fill with sticky rice to eat during the day. A French girl we met on the bus to Sam Neua had one and Laura really like them. The road side haggling was going nowhere so we decided to have a look in the market instead.
The market was like a maze with no real signage or set paths to follow. We found a lady who sold cure meats but was charging a high price that did not make it worth it. I eventually found a lovely wooden elephant for gran after months of searching so after a good haggle we popped him in our bag. Unfortunately finding food for the bus ride was coming up short. It seemed it was more of a mall selling everything from yellow gold jewellery to refrigerators. We saw signs to a 'Big C' supermarket, which is a big shopping centre chain in Thailand. A girl had the coffee shop said it was ten minutes walk north. The place was so big we couldn't even find where we left our bikes. Luckily, we stumbled over a little food market where we were able to buy some fresh baguettes and sample the local Laos sandwich. It consists of pork, liver pâté, salad, this random pork floss ( a lot nicer than it sounds) topped with chilli sauce. All this for 40p and it was amazing! We still had no fruit and no cured meat to go with our sticky rice.
Eventually finding the bikes we headed north to find the supermarket. It never materialised and even local people had never heard of it, like it vanished into mid air. It was getting hot and my forearms were searing in as the sun beamed down on us whilst we biked through the streets. We tried a couple of local vendors to no avail. The ride then led us to a small supermarket which turned out to be a sparse warehouse that just kept going. This was just before spotting an Ikea of all things!!
We bought some biscuits ( and a tin of tuna, for our baguettes haha, it had a ring pull don't worry) from the shop and fruit from the lady seller sitting outside. By this point we had had enough but Laura wanted a rice pot she saw in the morning market previously. We stopped by and she went in first to pick one out and I followed to bring out the bartering skills! I settled on a good price and Laura was delighted with her birthday gift.
We headed back and enjoyed a much felt deserved BeerLao from the same cafe as earlier, this time with bags in tow. We then grabbed a bowl of noodle soup to fill our bellies and got a street vendor to fill Laura's pot with sticky rice. We were now set for our trip and had to wait in trepidation for 5pm
The pick up was a little late but soon we en route to the bus station situated a ridiculous 12 kilometres out of town. There was a couple of lads from Germany also heading to Hanoi, comrades-in-arms so to speak. The bus station was manic with people and buses everywhere. We were led to shouts of "Hanoi" and our bags were loaded onto the bus. As with etiquette in Laos, tourists get the back seats. I am still unsure why but I think it has something to do with the locals being quite prone to motion sickness or because they are stupidly bumpy.
To our pleasant surprise the reclining bed style seats ( similar to Cambodia), were much more roomy even for my six foot plus long body. We were nicely snuggled in with the German guys and it wasn't long before the 24 hour marathon began. The red dusk soon turned to darkness as the bus made good speed through the scattered villages and flat countryside. We stopped at 9pm for food and rest break but I munched into the sticky rice and bananas we pre-purchased. The bus rode off onto the night and people started dozing signalled by the heaviness of breathing. The bus fell silent, Laura was in a Diazapam induced sleep beside me... I read for a while before intermittently dozing throughout the night.
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