outsider art outside Vientiane: Buddha Park

Buddha Park is this phantasmagorical, bizarre wonderland of statues depicting both Buddhist and Hindu iconography (and maybe other stuff too.....do you know which religious system(s) revere mermaids?). It's about 25km from Vientiane, and the mini-bus we took was only slightly faster than walking. I wasn't always certain we were going to make it, and on the way back, it seemed like there was an awful lot of heat coming from the engine under the driver's seat. Much of the trip was on a seriously potholed dirt road, and we definitely could've walked faster and been more comfortable. But that's ok, it was another experience of transportation in SE Asia. So, the park. This dude built it in 1958, but it looks a lot older than that. The statues are very large -- some are giant -- and they're made of cement and cement-covered bricks. I kept thinking that if only I knew the iconography, there might be giant cosmic jokes being told. As it was, I could only wonder, and gape in wonder.

such a busy crowd, like being at a statue party of weirdness

lots of dominion over things - here, triumph over a pile of skulls. :)

awww....baby Ganesha.

me being eaten by a crocodile

Marc and the ladies

again, Marc and a lady, plus a really giant snake.

mermaid? really?

monks crawling around the top of .....

this giant thing, which is supposed to represent hell, earth, and heaven or something like that.

Here's the mouth - you crouch and go inside, and I guess there are stairs inside or something.

I was just thinking of miniature golf with this one. Can you just imagine that? Putt-putting a golf ball into the mouth? It would fit the park, no kidding.

and this GIANT reclining Buddha - see him in context in the top photo. Giant.

So that was a very interesting trip. Trippy. Funny. Weird. Not like anywhere else, that's for sure! Every place we've been has been quite different from every other town, but now we return to the familiarity of Phnom Penh, tomorrow. Still, we'll be staying in a very different hotel, and we have plans to go to a wonderful restaurant tomorrow night. It'll be so interesting to see what it's like in Phnom Penh without all the Water Festival crowds....and what it'll be like after the tragedy of the Water Festival, too.

This is our last night in Laos, and it's hard to say what Laos is like. Is it like Luang Prabang? Or Vientiane? Or something else entirely - you can't tell what a country is like based on two places. We've both had such a hard time remembering where we are, while we've been in Laos. When we were in Luang Prabang, I kept thinking I was in Tibet. (WHY?!! That makes no sense. Nothing about it was like Tibet. Nothing. Buddhists sure, but very different Buddhists.) Now and then I was thinking we were in Borneo. Again, why. That's so weird. Being in Vientiane has been just a generic experience - Anywhere Asia. I don't know why it's been so hard to hold Lao in my mind; maybe it's because I didn't have an idea of Laos before I came, no template in my mind for it. With Cambodia, for better or worse there's Pol Pot and Killing Fields, at least it's something for an unworldly person like me to hold on to. With Laos, I knew of the Hmong and their arts - part of my understanding since the late 1970s - but somehow I just didn't/don't have a "LAOS" idea in my head. I think I'll hang on to Luang Prabang as my idea of Laos.

So now, we're going back to the banks of the Mekong for one last night of amazing and cheap food. I'll probably have one last Beerlao for the road. Ciao Lao.

breakfasts in Vientiane

Yesterday Marc and I had breakfast in the hotel - we usually do that, it comes free with the room and why not. Usually the breakfasts are at least ok, and often they're wonderful, especially in tropical places. But yesterday morning, we were sitting in the unremarkable restaurant of our unremarkable hotel, sipping our brilliantly orange 'juice' and it hit us both at the same time. We've tasted this before...........tang! Yes, in this semi-tropical place, with fresh fruit on every corner, we were drinking tang. And we suspect the eggs were of the powdered variety, given their texture and color. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, and free or not, I didn't want to waste any more vacation breakfasts on such bad food. (Oh, and Laos is known for its coffee -- the coffee in our hotel was bad instant. Not even good instant. Bad. Instant.)

So this morning we decided to go to a nearby bakery, which was highly rated in Lonely Planet and on TripAdvisor. Really, very highly rated, like, almost #1 in both places. And they said things like "you could eat every meal here and still want more." So off to Joma Bakery we went, this morning, in keen anticipation. (Well, I went in keen anticipation, seeing as how I love breakfast. Marc, not so much with the breakfast.) Granted, we've gotten used to having piles of amazing food that ends up costing us a couple of bucks. OK, we're in that context right now. But what we got this morning was (a) unremarkable, and (b) at New York prices. Too bad. And last night we stopped at the other highly-rated and always listed bakery, Scandinavian Bakery, for donuts. (Donuts seem to be a favorite Lao sweet, and what do you know: they're a favorite Lori sweet too.) Again, the context, really cheap amazing food. And again, unremarkable food at NY prices. The donuts were about $1 each. I KNOW!

We just returned from a dusty, bouncy ride out to Buddha Park - a bizarre, freakish, Disneyland of eastern religion iconography. As soon as I fix the photos, I'll post.

now why did we come here again? Hello, Vientiane.

We were trying to remember why we decided to come to Vientiane, and being here hasn't helped us remember. All Marc could reconstruct is that we came to Vientiane to get to Laos before we knew we had to go to Phnom Penh to go to Luang Prabang, or anywhere else in Laos, and somehow Vientiane never got dropped from the itinerary. It's not like we knew anything about Vientiane, other than that it's the capital of Laos. So when we got here this afternoon, we started looking in the travel guides, our Lonely Planet book, everywhere online, and we just kept reading this kind of thing: "since there's not much to do in Vientiane, the kids love to bowl."

Since one of our primary activities when we travel involves eating, we decided to go to the Mekong, just a few blocks from our (lackluster but ok) hotel since there's supposed to be a big thriving food scene there. The way we understood it, there would be lots of food vendors all along the riverfront. Here's what we saw:

yeah. I guess not.

So we wandered a bit, and finally found the food vendors lined up along a street set in a ways from the river. We picked one that looked good and sat down; the tables and chairs were lined up in the dust, littered with cigarette butts and construction debris, and an electrical wire running down the middle. I think we were getting bitten with sand fleas, on top of it. But I'll tell you what: the food was amazing. We had sticky rice, fried spring rolls, a grilled fish, chicken in spicy red chili sauce, and yellow noodles with pork. Plus a giant Beerlao for me, and a big bottle of water for us to share. LOTS of food, and all delicious. And the bill came to $15, which included a tip of unknown size.

We have no idea what we're going to do here. Aside from the wats, there's not that much to see. A replica of the Arc de Triomphe, Buddha park outside town, and a couple of markets......and we're here for 3 nights. Our hotel is wholly unremarkable, a far cry from the really lovely place we stayed in Luang Prabang. Vientiane suffers in the comparison, and we're glad it's not our last stop on our vacation. We have two nights in Phnom Penh to look forward to, and I hope we find something of interest here. We'll see. At the least, we decided to just go ahead and be up front with our shared disappointment in Vientiane, kind of like we did with our experience in India, and that helps. What's that saying? A problem shared is a problem halved, or something?

Oh yeah. I have a cold.

Perhaps the rest of this evening we'll watch Lao tv - in a language we absolutely cannot understand - in an attempt to entertain ourselves. :)

Vientiane: City Inn

In Vientiane, Laos (pronounced wee-en-CHAN, as far as we can tell), we'll stay in a junior suite at the City Inn Vientiane. It's in a great location, and gets good reviews so we're looking forward to it:

Every picture I've seen of the Mekong River reminds me of the Mississippi - big, meandering, and muddy. (and sidebar note of awe: I'm going to see the Mekong River!)

Welcome to the City Inn Vientiane

one of the rooms - a junior suite? We don't know. Still, lovely!

I don't want to wish away months of my life - there's too little left for that - but I am so excited, I wish it were time to go right now.