March 13th - Vientianne, Windbags and Beerlao

After a strange sleep on the train we awoke and neared Vientianne. During breakfast we stopped at the Udorn Thani station and waited until 8 AM so they could blare the national anthem through a set of crummy speakers. We reached the border around 9 and proceeded to work our way through customs. There was a sign warning you of the dangers of drug possession across the border, although I wasn't clear whether I would become this guy or he would await me in prison. Either way, point taken.



We finally arrived in Vientianne, the capital of Laos. When the Lao people took control of their government in 1975, they set up shop in Vientianne. It's a dusty, sleepy town with a number of important temples and a fake arc de triomphe. The name of the country is pronounced Lao (rhymes with cow). When the French colonized the place there were a number of different kingdoms. They initially referred to the entire land as the kingdoms of Laos (rhymes with house). Later shortened to Laos, pronouncing the ess. The natives and most south east Asians refer to the country as Lao, but still spell it Laos. Got it? Moving on. Our guest house was a nice little place decorated in the French colonial style. Being a poor, communist country, Laos needs to conserve its energy. To facilitate this, our room would only allow you to use electricity if you were actually there. Your guest key being the on/off switch. After another scrumptious lunch the plan was to take a tour of the important city sights. We met our guide, a somewhat rigid but personable local. We hopped in a bus and proceeded to see the Wat Sisaket (Wat = Temple), the presidential Palace, Patouxai and the impressive That Luoang. The guide had a strange way of speaking as if he had memorized hours upon hours of Laos history directly from a tour guide training manual. His favorite phrases, "In my conetryyyy","Asyoumayknow" and "The Lao Peepuuullll" were uttered repeatedly. On top of that, he would often repeat himself multiple times in the same sentence. "Asyoumayknow, in 1975, the Lao peepuuullll took over the government. Sooo, when the Lao peepuuullll took over the government in 1975, they adopted Marxist and Leninist socialism. In my conetryyyy, which was established in 1975, by the Lao peepuuullll..." and so on. In the end, he always had some fascinating information on the history, religion and way of life in Laos. I was the only one in our group that ever listened to his monologue in its entirety.





We ate dinner that night at a local restaurant called Just for Fun after having a couple of Beerlao at the bar. Beerlao has a 98% market share in Laos. It's a strong brew brought over by the French using a Czechloslovakian recipe. Needless to say, after three of these suckers (they seem to favor the larger, 16 ounce size) I was a bit slurry and ended up inadvertently spitting in Karen's eye when trying to say, "I've had too much Beerlao."