When I did research on where to go in Laos, almost every single blog and internet posting about Vientiane basically said to skip it and not think twice about the capital of the country. In fact, many long-term travelers we’ve met have decided to skip the country altogether, deeming it unworthy of their precious time. Perhaps it’s due to our contrarian nature or my experiences with Zagreb, Croatia in the past (a city that everyone said to skip, but that I absolutely adored), but we decided to roll the dice and spend a bit more than a full day in Vientiane. Fortunately, we were not disappointed at all as the city proved to be surprisingly fantastic and provided us with one of the best single days of our travels thus far!
Alright, so how did it all start? We arrived in Vientiane after a brief flight from Hanoi, Vietnam and quickly realized that this would be a very different experience for us from our time in large Vietnamese cities. Whereas Hanoi and Saigon were large (9+ million people), frenetic cities that occasionally felt like impromptu experiments in Darwinism, Vientiane felt positively quaint as soon as we landed. Not only was the airport tiny (only a couple of small buildings) and the population far more manageable (~750K people), the pace and tone of the city matched these changes. We had read that Laotians are rather shy and borderline meek people, which is totally true from our experience and stands in stark contrast to their more gregarious neighbors in Cambodia and Vietnam. Even the traffic was much calmer and more manageable, immediately bringing out a small amount of swagger from Jess as she was mostly able to cross the street without assistance. Big win! [Editor’s note: It’s true! Not only are there a lot fewer cars and motorbikes in general, but they move at a much slower pace, and seem to actually acknowledge the presence of pedestrians a little! It’s awesome.]
Part of the display set up for the New Years Eve street parties in Vientiane
Just wanting to dip our toes in the water of the city the first night we arrived, we decided to wander down towards the waterfront to take a gander at the night market. To our surprise, this was a massive and energetic scene, with red booths filled with clothes, paintings and other items stretching as far as the eye could see in both directions which was attended almost entirely by locals. Additionally, this market was adjoined by a large outdoor stage where a DJ was playing super energetic music (punctuated with random shouts of English words in the microphone), followed by a Laotian pop star (from what we could gather) as locals lost their damn minds with excitement. Quite the scene and not what we were expecting at all, but super cool to see! [Editor’s note: After watching the crowd screaming and dancing to a song in Laotian, where we obviously could not understand a word, it was a bit surreal to hear a Bruno Mars cover follow it up in the set list. Funny and pretty great.]
The Laotian pop star performing for a huge crowd
The next day – our only full one in Vientiane – somehow managed to eclipse the first impression we had from the night market and provided an awesome day of activities for us. We started the day by splitting up for different morning activities, with me visiting the COPE rehabilitation center for survivors who were injured by leftover bombs that were dropped in the Laotian countryside during the Vietnam War. I started by walking the 30 minutes across Vientiane to get from my hotel to COPE, during which I stumbled upon another famous landmark in Vientiane: Patuxay (the “Victory Gate of Vientiane”). Modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the French began construction on this during their occupation of Laos but were never able to finish it. But still, it was a delightfully pretty and interesting structure that was well worth my slight detour.
The Laotian version of the Arc de Triomphe
Looking up at the ceiling inside the Arc
As for the COPE rehabilitation center, it was founded to help both with discovering and clearing undetonated bombs from the Laotian countryside, as well as to help rehabilitate victims of those bombs (as well as other Laotians with physical limitations). All of this was necessary because we (aka: the U.S.) mercilessly bombed Laos during the Vietnam war, dropping the equivalent of a planeload of bombs on Laos every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day for 9 full years – causing it to be the most bombed country in the world (on a per capita basis). Because ~30% of those bombs never exploded at the time, the countryside is littered with these bombs – particularly the devastating cluster bombs, which house hundreds of tiny bombs – that have killed or injured thousands of Laotians in recent years. The significance of this issue made my time at COPE feel extremely important, which was surely exacerbated by the informative and well-curated visitor center. It was particularly interesting to learn more about how they make prostheses for injured victims, as well as to try walking with a prosthetic on my leg to see what that’s like. Truly a fantastic experience!
Cluster bombs hanging in a display at COPE
A display of prosthetics at the COPE center
Trying out a prosthetic leg – shockingly difficult!
As I wasn’t there for her activity, Jess will take over writing the rest of this paragraph to describe her experience at a fabric weaving and dying workshop:
Thanks Rorie! Late the evening before, I attempted to sign up for a class using the online form on the website for a women’s collective that teaches local women traditional weaving and dyeing techniques, then sells the products to help the women earn money. I was a little concerned about the timing because the tour is supposed to start at 8:30am at their store in the center of Vientiane, where they pick you up and take you about a 30-minute drive out to the center. Because I had signed up so late the night before, I didn’t know if they’d see it in time, but decided just to go wait and see. I showed up at 8:15 to a padlocked, very much closed storefront. There was a connected store to the side with a man opening up for the day, and with much gesturing I managed to ask about the pickup. “Yes yes, they’ll be here, just wait over there” he said, gesturing to the padlocked door. Around 8:29am, a middle-aged Japanese couple showed up looking like lost tourists. We confirmed that we were both waiting for the pickup, and continued standing awkwardly on the side of the mostly-empty street. Around 8:45, an unmarked white van pulled up with a driver who did not speak a word of English. He got out of the van and we all looked at each other expectantly. I managed to point to some signs for the workshop posted by the (still padlocked) door and he nodded and got back in the van. The Japanese couple and I looked at each other, shrugged, and climbed in. Sure hope this is going to the right place! Of course, it was the right van, and we made it to the center no problem. We all selected a pattern from photos of different options, and the women there helped us tie our silk scarfs using wooden sticks and tightly knotted plastic ties, similar to tie dyeing like I used to do at summer camp.
Learning to tie up my scarf properly
Ready for dye – hopeful this will turn out like the pattern I chose!
We then headed to a large outdoor area with vats of different natural dyes scattered around, and were shown the raw materials that create the different colors: Indigo for blue, jackfruit for yellow, marigold for orange, and an insect resin for red. We dipped our scarf bundles into our chosen colors and painstakingly rubbed the dye into every little fold and crevice in the fabric for what seemed like way too long, before rinsing it out (I had two colors, so then I repeated with the second one) and undoing the sticks and ties. The patterns turned out great, and we were all really happy with it! We hung them in the sun to dry and spent the next hour or so wandering around the center, watching the women do their incredibly intricate weaving techniques (the patterns are so complicated that they might only finish about 15cm in a whole day, and it takes around a month to do a skirt!). After a cup of coffee and finding a teeny kitten to play with, my scarf was dry and I returned to the city feeling accomplished and happy to have supported a great cause. Back to Rorie to pick it up from here after the photos!
Pits full of indigo dye built into the concrete ground. Stand in the middle to avoid needing to bend over so far!
Mine is the blue and yellow one in the left foreground – what do you think? I’m really happy with the outcome.
One of the local women working on a beautiful weaving pattern
I couldn’t mention the teeny kitten and not include a photo. Coffee mug for scale.
After lunch, we decided to head to another interesting activity at the Wat Sok Pa Luang temple in Vientiane unlike any we had done up to that point in our travels. After taking a tuk tuk out to the temple and getting lost for a bit, we were able to find a helpful monk to take us to the first half of our activity: chatting for an hour with Buddhist monks from a local temple, followed by a free one hour meditation session with the monks. We found a seat and chatted with a fairly young monk-in-training, La (sp?), who was awesome enough to practice his English with us and ask questions about our lives in the U.S., all while we got to learn more from him about his life as a monk. What an interesting, unique experience! We giggled while he and I admitted our shared love for the movie “Love Actually” (which, ironically, Jess hasn’t seen), laughed together at his response when we told him we were from NYC (“oh, like the state of mind!”) and really enjoyed hearing about why he chose to become a monk (his mom took him to an overnight session at a temple as a kid and he was so enthralled that he just “never left”!) and what his daily life is like. He was an incredibly warm spirit and super generous with his time. [Editor’s note: While all monks learn English, La seemed to be really motivated to learn on his own as well. He said that a lot of his friends are afraid of foreigners, so he wanted to learn English to talk to them and not be scared. He told us about how Laotian children now celebrate Halloween, and other fun tidbits about his life. It was great!]
Learning from the monks
With La, our new monk friend
Thereafter, we enjoyed a the one hour silent meditation session, which was a “mindfulness” meditation divided between 20 minutes of sitting meditation, 20 minutes of walking meditation and a final 20 minutes of sitting meditation. This was a rewarding opportunity as we were able to meditate while the monks rhythmically chanted Laotian prayers, though it was shockingly difficult/painful to sit cross-legged for such a long stretch! After the English conversation and meditation session, we went to a different part of the temple for another interesting offering – a traditional Laotian sauna and massage. This was “traditional” in every sense of the word, since there was nothing “modern” or fancy about this place. The sauna was essentially a wood and stone room in the woods where they put a concoction of beautifully fragrant herbs over boiling water to create an intense steam experience that was surprisingly delightful. Then, with sarongs carefully wrapped around our naughty bits, [Editor’s note: Naughty bits?] we proceeded to get a Laotian massage on an elevated wooden platform in the woods as night fell around us. It was far from a luxurious experience, but it was cool to get a semblance of the sauna/massage experience that Laotians have enjoyed for many, many years. [Editor’s note: When Rorie says “not luxurious,” picture me lying on the table on my back, staring at the peeling paint on the concrete ceiling with geckos hanging on above the massage table, waiting for insects to flutter into the bare lightbulb for a snack. Picture the masseuse kneeling on the table beside Rorie, one hand massaging his leg while talking on his cell phone with the other hand. It was pretty hilarious, actually, and made for a unique experience.]
We grabbed dinner at a super cool, outdoor food court with a bunch of different stands while listening to some of the concerts that were going on around us in anticipation (presumably) of New Years Eve, which was only a day or two away. Thereafter we snagged some ice cream before ending the evening with an activity beloved by Vientiane locals – bowling! We wandered in the dark until we found the bowling alley, which looked and felt like it was straight out of the 1970’s in middle America. We were able to bowl for $1/game, didn’t have to wear bowling shoes (we bowled barefoot, like bosses) and were able to mess around on retro lanes with bowling balls that had massive divots in them. [Editor’s note: There was even a cat hanging out next to us. Alley cat…get it?!] It was awesome! The place was empty because everyone was probably at the large array of local concerts happening around the city, but we enjoyed getting to hangout for a while doing something that it normally super popular with the locals.
Rorie surveys his shot at the old-school, deserted bowling alley
We ended up leaving fairly early the next day to catch a bus to nearby Vang Vieng for New Years Eve, but couldn’t have possibly been more satisfied with our time and experience in Vientiane! [Editor’s note: Even the bus ride, of course, was an adventure as a tuk-tuk picked us up to ferry us to the actual bus itself, but was so packed with other passengers already that we ended up hanging off the back while driving through the city streets to the bus station. Such is the new normal.]
Standing on the back of the tuk-tuk and holding on for dear life
The day of activities that we cobbled together was extremely unique compared with other activities that we’ve done in Asia, while also having a distinctly local and authentic feel to them that we found incredibly endearing. In some respects it was the perfect microcosm of the great thing about travelling, since there are times when super-hyped activities end up being duds (e.g., Halong Bay in Vietnam) but then totally overlooked activities or locations end up stealing the show.
