Laos Dried Fish
“The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.” – Rudyard Kipling
Early start for a 4 hr bus ride to Vientiane, although this one went quicker as we had all the photos of yesterdays tubing to laugh at. Along the way we stopped at a fishing village, which was unfortunately entirely pervaded by the stench of rotting fish. Not being able to stomach fish at that time of the morning I opted for a breakfast of a chocolate Cornetto. This also tasted of fish.
Once in Vientiane we dropped off the bags at the Hotel Laos in rooms of varying quality then looked round a couple more wats then on to Pha That Luang, which is a huge gold stupa, and fantastically fish free.
Realizing the need to change more money I dropped into an Exchange bureau where everyone that came in immediately pushed in front of me. Once the queue was down to one and they had no choice but to acknowledge me I bent down to the change window, said hello and immediately had a breath mint shoved over to me, which seemed a touch unsubtle.
Further on we climbed the Patuxai, a recent version of the Arc de Triomphe which cunningly had shops at every level and confusing signs to keep you browsing rather than finding the exit.
Having walked a long way we deserved a couple of lazy beers on the banks of the Mekong River. Across the water we could see Thailand again.
Ended up in a restaurant called Mekong Delta which served beer towers – looked rather like a blender full of 3l of beer with an ice core. Fortunately they we out of stuffed crickets so managed to pick out the nastiest rotten fish dish then hottest Yum ever. The Special Yum was a shame as the underlying taste was wonderful, but masked by enough chillies to make a Vindaloo weep. Speaking of which, there’s a noticeable number of Indian restaurants throughout Laos, yet I’ve not seen a single Indian person.
Long bar crawl home via a riverfront cafe, a Tex-Mex with an awful singer and a communist bar with the best pool table so far. Journey home was marred by a minor interlude to kill Santa.
