Mayan Prophecy Countdown

Today was the same as yesterday, heaps of rain, but doing the smart thing I went for brekky and took my umbrella this time and stayed dry 🙂 After packing up and getting the bike out of the hotel foyer later in the morning when the rain had nearly stopped, I headed off south. Funnily enough I found myself riding down the old airstrip which divides the town, well, that is where the SatNav took me, so that is the way I went?

The first section of road was bad, lots of potholes and road works, with mud tracks etc, although some of the lake sections were quite scenic.

But the road did improve and it was soon back to nice pavement and great corners as well 🙂 I stopped for a quick noodle soup lunch(there is not much choice here in Laos for anything else at lunchtime) and continued until I arrived in Vientiane, after only a few hours total travel time.

Once I had settled in I went for a wander down towards the river. I was actually looking for an ATM, but got sidetracked 🙂 I did find one but it would not accept my pin number, it wanted 6 digits, I only have four so I had to find another at some stage? I saw a lot of reminders it is a communist country, mainly due to the flags and signs displaying the Soviet hammer and sickle, usually in conjunction with the Laos flag.

The Mekong is a lot wider down here and judging by the flood barriers I am standing on, it is not normally this low. The actual river is way over on the other side near Thailand.

I would assume these poor squatters would have enough warning to move house before they got wet?

A derelict building along the waterfront where there is a major road construction going on.

Now that I am down out of the highlands, I could really feel the temperature difference, it was steamy hot, so much so I had to stop for a cool refreshing drink and this nice riverside pub looked the ideal place with a good river view 🙂

Unfortunately the beer was hot, yuck, and although they did provide ice, I have not really become used to that 😦 I finished the beer, waste not want not, and went and found a different pub called the Spirit House where they had cold beer. They told me the Laos people don’t mind hot beer with ice, but this place catered for Falang who expect the beer to be cold 🙂 . Here I settled in for a while and watched the clouds blocking the sunset before having some Tapas for dinner, garlic bread and sausage with spicy sauce(not hot). 🙂 While I was eating I could see a lot of fireworks happening over there in Thailand with many floating candle balloons drifting up as well. It was only Wednesday so it must be a special celebration day or something.

I was quite tired tonight and before long I was heading back to the hotel, the heat was getting to me I think. I bought some coke at a small store and just as I got to my room the heavens opened and it poured down!! I found a nice place to sit and wrapped myself around a few of these while reading a book 🙂

I only had a couple though before crashing out.

Cheers from
TravellingStrom