Vientiane the 2nd time was better (hint: because of the Buddha Park)

By The Wandering Vegan

I honestly thought that Vientiane was small and unimpressive the first time I passed through, so I wasn’t expecting much this time.

After the bus ride with friends from Vang Vieng, I was stopping for a night, while they were all immediately jumping on another bus. I linked up with a few people from our bus who were going to the same hostel I wanted to stay at (the one I went to last time) and walked a few blocks with them to get there. 3 Australians, 1 American girl (from “the state up north” that we don’t say in Ohio). It was a good opportunity to practice my Spanish with the Argentinians, so that was cool.

When I arrived at the hostel, my Israeli friend M was across the street eating pizza while waiting for a bus out of town, so it was nice to run into another friendly face.

Before sitting around and having a lazy evening, I made plans with one of the Argentinian guys to go to the Buddha Park the next morning.

After a long, comfortable sleep and the free breakfast at the hostel, we walked down to the bus station to find the local bus #14 out to the Buddha Park. It’s 75 cents for the local bus; the tuk-tuks and tour operators kept trying to sell us a trip for close to $10. Yeah, right! The bus dropped us off at the gate outside, and we paid 50 cents to get in.

I really can’t express why in the world this park of a bunch of Buddha statues needs to exist or why it’s in this location, but it’s here. It’s quite interesting, as well.

I spent the entire morning speaking Spanish as much as possible, receiving corrections and asking questions as necessary. I’m pretty excited about how good my Spanish is getting from just learning on the fly and not practicing regularly. At the Buddha Park, I also ran into an Italian guy from my hostel in Luang Prabang, so that was funny.
We didn’t spend long at the Buddha Park. 45 minutes was enough. We walked across the street, caught the bus going back into town, and laughed about the kid bringing a chicken on the bus.
Back in the center of Vientiane, I wanted to get lunch and head back toward the hostel to prepare for my long trek to the Bangkok airport. I split up with M, the Argentinian, thanked him for helping me practice my Spanish all day, and walked toward the vegetarian buffet I’d eaten at the last time in town. It was closed, but there was a vegan restaurant right across the street, so I ate there for about $2 and then headed back to my hostel.
On the way, I stopped at the ticket office where I’d bought my night train ticket a few weeks prior, to make sure that they were still planning to pick me up that afternoon, and then gathered up my belongings. I was completely underwhelmed by Vientiane the first time around, but this time was much better. I had good food, a bi-lingual tour of an interesting site, and then got out while still interested.
The van to take me to the train station picked me up only 20 minutes after 3pm, so that’s basically on time for Laos. You learn to roll with it.
Laos gave me some amazing memories, some great new friends, challenged me as a person with some deep conversations, and it became one of my favorite countries.
Thanks for everything, Laos! Khawp Jai lai lai.
Next post: Night train to Bangkok and flight to Mandalay, Myanmar.
This entry was posted in asia, lao, laos, vientiane

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About Author The Wandering Vegan ryan@wanderingvegan.net

My name is Ryan.

I caught the travel bug at a young age, and here are the tales of my wanderlust, surprise vegan food finds, and adventures across the planet.

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