What's Wat in Vientiane
Again Bros blog comes to the rescue!
No special plans today - our first full day in town.
After a nice breakfast in the Hotel we went out walking and sight-seeing.
This involves looking at a lot of Wats - they're all over the place.
We also walked over to Don Chan, this being a large sandy (sometimes) island adjacent to the main part of Vientiane, on a bend in the Mekong.
The land across the river is actually Thailand.
Thinking ahead a bit we also sought out and arranged for the next leg of this trip - to Siem Reap in Cambodia.
We will leave Vientiane on the 18th, fly to Pakse in southern Laos - where additional passengers will be picked up - and then on to Siem Reap, where we should be able to get Visas at the Airport.
A few random notes about Laos:
Vehicles drive on the right hand side of the road;
The currency is called the Kip;
Roughly, 6,500 Kip = AUD$1;
The roads are festooned with Scooters and the traffic generally moves fairly slowly. When it rains the riders travel with one hand on the throttle and the other holding up an umbrella;
Probably not an actual Law but the driver behind is responsible for avoiding accidents. This means - and we have seen this time and time again - that a scooter rider can pull out of a side street into a main road without so much as a glance at the cars coming along the road, who are expected to anticipate this and avoid hitting him or her;
Female scooter passengers often ride side-saddle behind the rider. In the wet she will not be holding onto anything except an umbrella;
There is only one strip at the Luang Prabang Airport and once your plane has landed it turns around and trundles back up the strip to the Terminal.
That's it for now.
Cheers.
"Wat" a Door!
To your rear march/run - as the case may be!
Fancy window screen
Breakfast or Prayer meeting?
That's some door!
cont. over: