What's Up Al ? 遊記隨筆 生活點滴

Golden Buddha, golden stupa, golden wats, golden lotus, golden statues, golden dragons, golden ceilings, golden doors, golden windows, golden paintings, - everywhere we went in Laos were gold, gold, gold - we were in no doubts left with golden impressions ! 

Golden impressions aside, we were greatly rewarded after this trip knowing that Laos had indeed progressed, at least our impressions felt that way; in terms of the infrastructure, city-scape, availability of daily necessities, cleanliness and ease of living (incredibly, wi-fi was available everywhere we had gone); but for sure the following things had not changed since we visited ten years ago - the friendly people, pleasant atmosphere, the tasty Khao Piak Sen (soup noodles) and delicious Laos coffee - sure, we would find time to visit again in the not too distant future. 

Zap ! Ten years had gone by like the blink of an eye ! All those years ago, we spent a quick 2 days in the capital of Laos on our 3 months-long Indo-China wandering and it was high time that we got to know this city better. Right off the bat, we found that much development in residential properties, shopping malls and food centres had taken place in this, what we had remembered to be a sleepy capital; Vientaine now exuded an air of prosperity while retaining much of its laid-back river charm. Each day we ventured out to a variety of sights and we would typically retreat back to the comfort of shades after a bowl of Khao Piak Sen (soup rice noodles), to get a bit of relief from the fierce afternoon heat.

Our favorite sights included : the majestic Patuxay (Victory Monument) where we climbed a few tens of steep stairs to enjoy an all-round 360 degrees view of this lovely city; a series of Wats awaited our exploration almost at each street corner and these Wats were beautifully decorated and painted with fine craftsmanship; what's more, most of these Wats housed the living quarters for practicing Buddhist monks and the Wats felt to the visitors to be serene and peaceful; a blue sunny day greeted our visit to the Grand Stupa and the golden Stupa shone with all its glory in the blinding sun light; we also exercised our limbs by going through mega-day-walks along The Mekong where we could view the Thai landscape across the river, just a stone's throw away; the museums in Vientaine offered a vast goldmine of information about this interesting country and we also spent an hour in the sobering MAG UXO visitor centre which detailed the country's effort to get rid of the very much un-welcomed Un-eXploded Ordnance (UXO) left behind from previous wars. On a brighter note, all around us were preparation, posters and decorations for the coming Chinese New Year (Rooster) as there had long been a large contingent of Chinese living here (Laos being a neighboring country to China), the celebratory atmosphere sure fired us up into a festivity mood !