day 3
its worth saying at this point that we treated this holiday in a fairly relaxed way... started off very easily, didnt really plan for much, and just kinda acted like hippies and went with the wind... because of this mindset we got a pretty broad cross section of the country.. from the mundane tourist sights to some fairly authentic local knowledge. this will all be shown throughout the entries.
first stop was a weaving workshop, pretty incredible how they make the traditional silks.
dropped our bags off at my uncles house, this was the view out our window. lao is weird because there isnt really street names except for on the main roads. his house was a modern western style palace (in comparison to the normal way of living in lao. we wouldnt realise till later how rare this is in the country)
we got given a driver, who took us around to see the main tourist attractions in town
the lao arc de triomphe
that luang - the major buddhist temple in the capital. funnily enough the only tourists that were here were lao or thai, no westerners.
these guys had a crazy racket going where they would take a tourist pic of you in front of the temple and then print the photo out for you instantly
in lao most people get around on scooters/motorbikes. for the most part they can get away without having a helmet on (although if a police patrol is set up theyll be fined), and it seems that there arent really age restrictions to riding either.
we then went to this place just out of town called buddha park. pretty incredible kind of sculpture garden.
that was a car stereo shop that had a weed leaf as a logo
another temple, i cant remember which one.these buddhas had there heads blown off in the war.
this is what the graves of the affluent look like.
our first bowl of lao pho. it was good but not amazing.
went to this bar on the mekong called 'kong view', it was kinda hidden away but seemed popular with locals.
we had these as beer snacks. grilled chicken wrapped in banana leaf on the left (incredible) and the remains of some fried mekong weed on the right. mekong weed is pretty amazing. not too disimilar to nori, but thicker and covered in sesame seed and garlic.
this was my uncles maids dog, kinda freaked us out.
