A Morning in Vientiane

It seems that the whole world meets in the small city that is Vientiane. Leaving the airport, one passes by big advertisement boards by Western beer brands and Chinese investment companies, after which a derelict Renaissance-style dome welcomes visitors to the town proper. Without making much of an effort, one can find both an American Centre and a Russian “Science and Culture Centre” on streets that still bear their French names. Thai and Vietnamese banks have a strong presence along the roads, which are traversed by public mini busses gifted by “the people of Japan” and tour busses from China and South Korea.

Vientiane is a sleepy town. The centre has but one road with three lanes in each direction; most other roads have two lanes in total and are easy to cross even during the morning rush. Most of the older temples show their age, though not in a disconsolate way: there is something refreshingly authentic about their weathered walls and sombre statues, free from the cloying golden frills, glittering mirrors and fake gems that abound in Bangkok. There are many buildings that date back to the French colonial period, but more functionalist structures take up a more considerable portion of the city’s urban fabric.

Spending my weekend in Laos was a last-minute decision. In fact, I will be visiting Laos again when my friend Aron comes to visit towards the end of October. While I was doing research for our trip, however, I ran into an unexpected difficulty. I had originally intended to make a journey to the Plane of Jars, which is accessible by plane from Xieng Khouang airport in Phonsavan. Although I could find flights on third-party websites, the airlines that were supposed to be operating them would only allow me to book for September. After many frustrated searches and several unanswered emails, I unearthed a Facebook post on a page for tourists saying that the airport in Phonsavan would close in October for a year’s worth of repairs. While I rarely take information from social media at face value, I figured the post must be true as it explained why no airlines were operating flights to Xieng Khouang past September.

This is how I ended up in Laos for a weekend, arriving on a Thursday evening and departing for Phonsavan the following afternoon. The weather during my morning in Vientiane was perfect for a quick exploration. I walked from my hotel to That Dam Stupa, a tall grey structure overgrown with vegetation and located on a quiet roundabout overhung by thick clusters of electric cables. I then proceeded to the Patuxay Monument, which was built between the years of 1957 and 1968 to commemorate the Laotian struggle for independence against the French. The monument sits on a relatively large square separating the two currents of Lane Xang Avenue, which is the main road in Vientiane.

I spotted a tuk-tuk driver on the other side of the road and asked him to take me to Pha That Luang. This golden stupa is said to have been founded in the third century BCE, though its current form is much more recent. When Siam put down the Lao Rebellion in 1828, it razed much of Vientiane and Pha That Luang with it; the structure was only restored under the French colonial administration (and damaged again during the Franco-Thai War during World War Two). Finally, I rode back to the centre to visit the temples Wat Sisaket and Ho Phrakeo, the latter of which once housed the Emerald Buddha now found in Bangkok.

The plane to Phonsavan departed with half an hour’s delay, which was ironic considering the flight had previously been rescheduled to an earlier time. My fellow passengers were a mix of European and Asian tourists, as well as locals for whom flying was clearly an infrequent experience. I saw two older men check-in with large blue booklets instead of passports, and a few ladies in their traditional straight patterned dresses boarded the plane with baby slings on their chests. Some grabbed the seats in front of them at the slightest hint of turbulence. The plane was a Chinese Xi’an MA600 with a turboprop engine and four seats in each row, and its wheels descended from the wings, which gave me a real fright as we finalised our descent.

I could tell my time in Phonsavan would be a special experience as soon as I clambered down the stairs from the plane. The airport was a single building with one waiting room and a simple fence behind which a crowd of onlookers stood waiting for their relatives. While most tourists either took tuk-tuks or pre-arranged taxis to their hotels, the locals had their family members drive them home in pick-up trucks – a very popular type of car in this area due to the dreadful state of the roads. As the hotel owner drove me to my accommodation, the car kicked up a lot of dust and stones, occasionally honking at dogs straying too close to the road. The final stretch before the hotel, the owner told me, was in fact Phonsavan’s previous airport: the run-down runway has since then become integrated into the town’s road network.

One I had checked in and booked a tour for the next day, I decided to make a trip around the surroundings. It was a little after four and the temperature felt very pleasant in the shade or when clouds were passing over the sun. At first, I walked east from the hotel, reaching what seemed to be the outer edge of the city. I attracted a lot of attention, partly for being foreign but also for walking on foot where almost everyone else rode a motorcycle. I could hardly regret my choices though: on my way, I saw quaint ponds and paddies, grazing buffalo, and friendly villagers going about their daily lives.

After a while, I reversed course and walked across the old airport to the city centre. My hope was to reach a market we had driven past, and sure enough, I found it. The edges of the market looked quite ordinary: the fruit vendors sat on both edges of the main street, while some of the offshoots were lined with stores selling shirts, toys, and other mass-manufactured products. I recognised most of the fruits in the stalls: mangoes, mangosteens, longans, rambutans, bananas, and more, but there was one large melon-like product I could not identify. There were also a few stalls grilling fish and other meat: these were kept to the side so as not to smoke out the whole street,

Closer to the centre of the market, the products became more interesting. Once I had passed by the women selling various types of vegetables – some of which I could identify and some of which I could not – I found myself in the meat section. As in many other Asian countries, there was no shortage of fish in vats. However, this was the first time I saw entire buckets full of freshwater eels. There were also frogs in dry tubs, some of them covered with netting. The most interesting sight was a stall with bushmeat, which included various fowl, squirrels, and what, upon further investigation, I can only assume was a masked palm civet.

On my way back to my hotel, I was greeted by a man with the unusual question of “Are you from Afghanistan?” I replied rather puzzled that I was not, and in the ensuing conversation, the man explained that he knew many Afghans with long wavy hair (though I personally doubt very many of them are blonde). The news that I am from the Czech Republic startled him immensely. To my great surprise, he proceeded to tell me – in very rusty Czech – that he studied agriculture in Brno in the 1980s.