Leaving Lao

Down to Lang Probang I went. A city that looks and feels a lot like Hoi An. Some how though it's a lot more appealing. Think it's because there are not so many families running about, and much more to do. Some how it did not turn out to be some where I would spend much time. Even though I found a ridiculously cheep place to sleep, I still was not to enchanted by the place. Mostly just mission'ed about the town snapping photos and rambling about the night market. I looked into getting my Thailand Visa how ever I was informed I had to go to Vientien to get that. Bollox I had to go back to that crappy capital city.

Next morning on route to finding my way to the bus station. I bumped into the monk procession down the road. Hundreds of monks walk down the main drag collecting food. It was a shock and a beautiful sight

Landing in Vientien it became apparent rather quickly that the city was almost totally booked out. As the South East Asian games were taking place in the city. Wondering about town looking for accommodation, I bumped into Ling a Chines girl who works as a tour guide on vacation. We walked for ages looking for something cheep, almost lucked out and heading for the tuk tuk drivers. We discovered a place we had over looked. Diving in the door to see if they had space, luck seemed to have found us again. As I was getting the key to look at the last available room. Another bunch arrived, it was basic and a bit grungy. But it was good fore it had two beds so we split the room. That night we had street food, rather crap Lao food is not the best. We hung out side our weird little inn only to realize what I had over looked before. The corner it was on was riddled with lady-boys strutting their stuff for the passing sex tourist. It had me in stocked as Ling could not tell they were men. The def queer Thai dude sitting over the table from us, recognized what we were talking about. Soon enough he was pointing at the lady-boys and flexing his index finger, trying to let on the nature of the 'girls'. We mumbled our way about trying to figure out more about this bloke and other details of this industry. Never thought I could ever understand a def person or get my message across.

The next day it was Visa application time. We hired a bike for the day, heading off to find the Thai embassy. We soon learned that it had moved and that it was closed. Hey I had to do this the following day any how so, we mission'ed to find it anyway. Whoop whoop it was still open, what luck! So running around like a mad man to get my application in before it closed. Some of the stuff they require on those forms is bull, like where I would be staying at? So my wild imagination did kick in, I filled out "the flying ping pong". A bit risky in hind sight that could have been cause to revoke my visa. I wonder if anybody even read that.

Forms all filled out we headed for the huge archway like the one in Paris. Snapped a few photos then headed for budda park, supposedly 14 km out of town. No map at had it was a simple that direction that worked. But not after a bit of a detour, worth it I thought though. The park it's self was a lot more impressive than I ever thought it would be. The budda's are rather unlike anything I had seen before. With the sun soon leaving the sky's we headed back to town. This time I got it right and we were in town in no time. After dropping the bike we headed to the football stadium, to catch a glimpse of a football match. We struck gold at arriving at the gates we could go in for nothing! 10 min before when passing on the bike tickets were 70, 000.00 kip. The match was between Vietnam and Thailand a final game. Later we realized it was a woman's final, none the less. The atmosphere is what we were after to be part of and enjoy.

That pretty much sum's up what was left in Lao for my trip. The next day I would collect my passport and head for Thailand.