Laos : Day 5 - Vientiane - Vang Vieng

Back in Vientiane, we walked to the Talat Sao morning market after breakfast.

Fresh banh mi

Clothing and bags section 

I bought a sweat jacket for LAK30,000 - that's only about RM15. The jacket, of course, was not of good quality - the sewing had flaws, and the fabric was not good. But at that kind of price, I should not expect much. BW and CC both bought the same jackets as mine, and the fabric produced lint where the jacket rubbed against their backpacks. So much so that they did not bother to bring back the jacket after the trip. Heh. My jacket somehow fared better than theirs. I brought mine home. 

Fresh produce 

More fresh produce on sale

Fruits 

There was a section selling kitchenware ... 

I bought a khao niaw basket to bring home ... and at this same stall, I bought Mom's favourite Thailand Kiwi 3-inch paring knives .. I bought 4 pairs at RM10.

Near the Talat Sao Morning Market were the malls - there were 2 malls here, one old and one new. We only went into the old one. There were stalls selling trinkets and jewellery and some odd items. 

Yummy 

We were glad that our tour leader had recovered today. She bought some deep-fried grasshoppers. I ate 2. They were crunchy and tasted like dried shrimps. Not bad, actually.  

We left for Vang Vieng at about 11.30 a.m.. Vang Vieng was about 3.5 hours North of Vientiane, and i was also the hometown of our local guide, Lavone.

Pretty Hmong girls in their costumes

It was the Hmong new year at that time, and typically, the Hmong celebrate the occasion for an entire week. We saw some celebrations going on along the way, and stopped to take some photographs with the girls. 

At a rest stop named Xaiyoh, we had our lunch.

Pork with rice, LAK15,000

I think that was the best meal I'd ordered thus far ... 

Avocado shake, LAK15,000

We reached Malany Hotel at Vang Vieng in the evening ... 

Our hotel room 

It was a spacious corner, and I was aghast to find out that there were huge glass window panes on 2 sides of the wall. It meant that I was going to be cold that night .... hmn. So I pushed the bed away from the glass panes as I possible could ....  

Vang Vieng was small and touristy. Our tour leader showed us around town .... 

Hot air balloon, seen from the streets of Vang Vien

I think they charged about USD90-95 for a 15-minute ride

The most beautiful part of Vang Vieng was the .... 

Nam Song River

So beautiful at dusk

The bamboo bridge was so narrow .... and at times, motorcycles were coming from both sides so pedestrians had to stay really still for the motorcycles to pass them by ... 

People came to Vang Vieng for water sports. So around town, we could see lots of shops selling dry bags and waterproof phone casings. I did buy a 10L dry bag for only LAK30,000 and a casing for LAK10,000. This town, particularly, attracted a lot of Korean tourists ... so all around town, there were Korean BBQ restaurants. Lining the roads were also many sandwich stalls ... hmn ... I didn't know what to eat. I did not want to have fried rice or noodle soup or sandwich or pancake as what my friends ate. So I skipped dinner again.