After a long motorcycle trip from Luang Prabang, with our wonderful and tireless Vietnamese Dynamite, we arrived in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. The first sensation was of rest, we arrived at a city with the shape of a city, more or less ordered, leaving behind all those half-done roads, between rows of (precious) mountains and muddy towns …

As always, first step, go to find an accommodation, remember that it is still hot, so we go walking around the central area, near the river, like champions, next to the Night market, to find the guesthouse, good looking and cheap … After visiting various hovels, or receiving offers outside of our budget, we found Sport guesthouse. A clean room with private bathroom and fan that, haggling, charged us 70,000 kips a night … very expensive! (considering background) but the best we found in all the time we were there.

Like everything else in Laos, Vientiane is a city with little movement, a bit bland … with little to do … a bit soporific … every so often a jazz or rock concert from a Thai band … or some singing will be announced. Indian author who comes to explain that as a child he was told that he was not good for anything, that he has had many diseases, and as a colophon playing the titanic song with a Peruvian flute … seriously! We were there … without words (whoever wants to have a small video that shows it …).

But to our surprise, in Vientiane we had a lot of work, between NGOs and enthusiastic international schools that hired us to act. So we stayed a little over three weeks … At this time we could take advantage to catch up with blogs and prepare the projects we had scheduled among other millions of things.

We were lucky to be accompanied by friends who have lived in Vientiane, Alexandra and Alberto for a year, a lovely couple who helped us a lot. They started the same trip as us a year before, but the third month of the route, the destination and a wonderful job offer, led them to stay and live in Vientiane !!! Do not you think that the surprises that life offers us are incredible? Now they live in the capital of Laos, working accumulating endless experiences of Laotian life.

With them we share many moments of zenings, walks and talks about life. We recommended you contacts for the project, restaurants, routes, mechanic to fix the Vietnamese dynamite, until Alexandra made us a professional photographer in one of the shows. Thanks a lot to both of you for so much !! And good luck and happiness with your next personal project; )

During those three weeks we did millions of things …

After an arduous search for peelers in the market, I could finally cut my hair, it seems easy to find a simple peeler … but it took us more than five days to find it at a reasonable price!

One of the points of interest of the city is the COPE Museum (Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise). It is an organization founded in 1997 to provide prosthetics to the population of Laos victim of mutilation, due to the explosions of remnant bombs scattered throughout the country. These bombs were thrown by the United States between the years 1964 and 1973. The USA threw more than 2 million tons of bombs on Laos, a brutality. Laos is the most bombed country in the history of mankind. The bombings took place to destroy the supply routes of the northern Vietnamese army, but they got out of hand …

Of all those pumps, 30% did not explode !! So imagine, they left 600,000 tons of explosives still to be exploited by the fields of Laos, an underdeveloped country that is almost entirely devoted to agriculture … Even today there are 300 new explosions every year, that means 300 people killed or mutilated … The main problem is that the bombs used by the USA were mostly cluster bombs, composed of a carcass that opens during the descent releasing some 202 sub-units of explosives (see photo above) that are scattered over huge areas … crazy…

The truth is that before arriving in Laos we had no idea about this fact, we were horrified to learn that an innocent country, without any involvement in the war, since it had been invaded by North Vietnam, was punished with impunity by those who they call the defenders of freedom … someone won a lot of money along the way … Well, we better stop making judgments of values, that is not the purpose of this blog … even if it lights me up like a torch …

Another point of interest in Vientiane are the numerous Buddhist temples, they are everywhere. We visited one that was in the area of ​​our guesthouse, by the way very beautiful. One of the most important temples is the Wat Si Muang, the mother temple of Vientiane, from the 16th century.

It is said that in this temple a pregnant woman volunteered as a sacrifice to calm the angry spirits and threw herself through the hollow of one of the pillars, then was crushed by the pillar itself when it was placed … often nonsense … what things are found Google … This pillar was the center of Vientiane from which the city grew … I believe everything, except what was offered … because these people a lot of pro-activity does not … finally …

The shore of the Mekong River is a hive of people and activities when the sun goes down. People go out to do various exercises, from aerobics to walks, and how could it be less, we have the Night market! a huge walk full of outdoor stands with clothes, food, electronics, toys … almost anything you want to buy … and above all do not forget to bargain !! You can get very good prices!

One curious thing that we saw in this market, and in other places but that we had not commented, was a group of Westerners asking … There were three pairs of young people who looked like Eastern Europe, who were sharing the market with a guitar playing and asking … This phenomenon has been called “Beg-packers”, coming from “Back-packers” (backpacking) but with “Beg” which means begging … they are people who carry out activities in the street asking for money to pay for the trip, or in some cases simply ask, without offering anything in return, with the excuse that they subsidize their trip …

The truth is that going to an underdeveloped country to ask for money to pay for the adventure we found it a bit out of place, but there are people for everything … the locals looked at them with the face of strangers, without understanding … in the market you could see to a local little old woman pretty dusty on the floor asking a few meters ahead of a couple of burly whites or a cute little blonde girl showing pictures of how to make a hitch … well, this is what gives you travel … you see everything little bit…

Another market that we visited was Morning market, a large local market, with food, textiles, cosmetics, electronics … it is always curious to see the local markets, for good and for bad, between the lack of hygiene and the bright colors of their vegetables and fruits … we love the markets!

In the capital there is another night market, but Hipster style, with modern food places and stalls of alternative and vintage clothing. We walked a couple of nights, the atmosphere full of very fashionable university students …

For eating, we found several local places that were not bad, especially a very grubby restaurant that for 15,000 kips we ate some noodles in black sauce very good! (as a reference, near Serene’s works of art). One day they took us to the Vietnamese Restaurant Banh Cuon by Hongthong, great and cheap, it was worth it.

And to rest a bit of Asian food in the Italian Restaurant Aria we found 2×1 on pizzas !! Very good, they cost us 40,000 kips each pizza.

Also, in the Restaurant Le Vendome, in the center of the city, the half-day menu offers you two typically French dishes, although simple, at a more than reasonable price, 24,000 kips. Ideal to relax and recover strength.

If you are looking for a place to work, we made our office in the Kingbox hamburger, run by very kind and friendly Koreans. For 28,000 kips you have the beef burger with potatoes and Pepsi. There we stayed for hours and hours working so to gustito, the A / C was our religion, we adored the god cool … with more than 40 º C on the street.

At the level of work, we must emphasize that we were in the Fanglao dance and theater school, composed of a group of young people who teach modern dances (hip-hop, etc …) and that every 2 months represent a new production made by them same. We were surprised by their professionalism and quality of the show that they invited us to witness … Bravo! In return, we made them a Clown workshop that they enjoyed a lot.

Also we were offered to act with the National Circus of Laos !!!! But we had to refuse the offer because they asked us to stay 3 more weeks … an exceptional opportunity … but we would have cut our wrists if we stayed longer in Vientiane !!!

And after a long stay in the capital of Laos, we got on our Vietnamese Dynamite to follow our route !!!! Next destination … Thakhek and its fantastic loop tour !!!!