Before anything else, I know you might be wondering why would a person visit Laos, and what can we see in Laos, btw? So for starters, if you haven’t seen my Luang Prabang travel diaries, better head there now. And Vientiane? Well, this is the capital of Laos and to be honest, there isn’t much to see but as an avid traveler, I am trying to visit all Southeast Asian countries before I explore other places. As the saying goes, love your own. You see, Philippines is part of SEA so there…
Oh, and to answer your questions on what can we see in Vientiane? There’s Buddha Park, Pha That Luang, and Patuxai, to name the most famous ones. You can see Vientiane in a single day, unlike Luang Prabang where you need to allot at least 2 days to see the most of it.
This is our day 5 on our HAN-LPQ-VTE-BKK tour and we’re 2 blog post away from finishing this travel series. :)** What I actually like about this trip is this is actually my first time to do border crossing. Like land border crossing and it was definitely cool.
So anyway, we didn’t do border crossing from Luang Prabang to Vientiane as it is both in Laos. From Luang Prabang, we hopped on an overnight bus which is a little different from what I rode when we’re in Thailand… But still, we arrived in Vientiane safe and sound and a little too early that we don’t even know what to do to kill time.
Our first agenda was to get tickets to Udon Thani, Thailand because we depart for Thailand that night and expect to arrive in Bangkok the next day. So we went to the ticket office… and to our dismay, it opens at 8am but come 8am, there’s still no one selling an Udon Thani ticket. So we waited until 9 but still no one.
We decided to go through our itinerary for the day and just go back to the ticketing office. We had our breakfast at the bus station (‘coz that’s how you do it ala backpacker, lol) then we rode a bus going to the Buddha Park.
Buddha Park or Xieng Khuan in its local name has more than 200 religious sculpture. It was built by a monk who focuses on both Buddhism and Hinduism in 1958. Actually, during our excursion here, the weather was quite bipolar as when we’re in Buddha Park, it is raining hard then it became sunny come lunch time.
We had to wait for the rain to stop. The ground got muddy and it was a hassle walking around. We also encountered some Filipinos in the area. :)
I think the park isn’t extravagant. I mean it was just a normal park with Buddha statues. The best spot for taking photos is above the biggest statue as it has stairs leading to a little viewing deck.
After Buddha Park, we went back to the ticketing office and luckily, someone’s already selling tickets. So that day, we depart for Udon Thani at around 4 PM.
We still have so much time though. Next is we went to the Patuxai Victory Monument. This monument is very historic as this was built to honor those Lao people who fought freedom and independence from the French colony. The architecture also of the monument is very similar to Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The ceiling is very detailed. Also, the monument has a viewing deck wherein you can see a great view above.
There is a total of seven floors. Some floors have vendors selling different stuff while 3 top most floors are for viewing purposes.
The monument looks like it was straight from a French history book. For me, this is the highlight of this Vientiane trip. I was able to see the Patuxai up close.
Right after Patuxai, we went to Pha That Luang where unfortunately I think it was ongoing some renovations/maintenance but lucky for us, there’s this nearby temple where they are celebrating something. I don’t know what they are celebrating but they all seemed happy. They’re giving free drinks and food for everyone. Then there’s a mini parade inside and there’s also a live band performing.
It was very festive. We stayed there just to watch these people have fun.
So it seems we already saw the main attractions. We went back to the bus station and ate lunch to a nearby cafeteria. I was also able to try their bagel bread with some filling inside. It was surprisingly good! We waited for the bus departure and we’re off to Udon Thani. :)
It was a fun experience especially the border crossing! haha. We all had to get off at the immigration area and have our passports stamped while the bus waits for us. I think we arrived in Udon Thani at around 7 pm.
For a moment I felt so relieved because finally.. here we come Thai food!!! Haha. I also saw another Robinson’s mall. Loool. So we bought our overnight bus ticket to Bangkok in Udon Thani then we had dinner.
And this is how we spent our day 5 in this backpacking journey. Writing this down makes me want to pack my bags again and just go somewhere else.
Next up is our Bangkok escapade. Watch out for it. :)
Cheers! xx
