Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Vietiane

Vientiane is one of the least spectacular capital cities I have visited. It is right at the passing Mekong, which is extremely wide here. On the other side Thailand is easily visible. They are currently deepening the Mekong to gain some land on the riverfront to build a huge park. Which will help a lot to upgrade the city as a whole. We visited the museum of national history which is as bipartisan as the United States Congress. Dont get me wrong - foreign powers have raped the country since it has been mentioned, but it was definitely far away from objective. We also visited their White House and the monuments next to it. Vietiane can be very hot which made it difficult to walk to the Cambodian embassy twice. We went bowling in a bowling center, which was the first time for me in years.
The nightlife is at the riverfront with a lot of restaurants offering a big variety of food. Lao people are not as pushy as surrounding countries which makes walking around a bit easier. They are bit lazier than their neighbors as well.
One interesting thing is that China is building a lot on the Lao side of their border. The language in this area has changed to mandarin, the currency is the Yuan and the Lao people have been transported away by the Lao troops. This happened because China has offered a lot of money to establish casinos and fancy hotels for Chinese nationals. Now the Lao border officials have moved away from the original border to the "new border".

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