13/03/2010 Vientiane in a day and new glasses

After taking advantage of our free internet for a few hours and hoeing into some lasagna for lunch we set off to explore the city.

We first walked along the Mekong right on the Thai border, where they are working on a major development to both protect the city from flooding and to provide some green areas for eating and entertaining – a multi-million dollar project. Past the presidential palace and several Wats we came across the only high-rise in the city – an international standard hotel called Don Chan Palace. You could be mistaken for thinking it actually was a palace given its scale! From here we walked north to Wat Sisaket, the oldest temple in Laos and home to hundreds of Buddhist statues, some of which had been damaged during the war. After a bit of time here we went up to check out the shopping centre which was a bit like something you might find in a rural town in Australia – not a major centre. There are only 250,000 residents in Vientiane with a total population for Laos of just over 6 million. After we checked out the bus stop to find out prices and times for our bus to Thailand we stumbled across an optometrists shop.

On learning that we could get frames and transitions lenses fully made up for $80AUD I ordered some new glasses (my old ones are ready for the trash) and were told they would be ready in an hour! This was 5pm on a Saturday evening! The optometrist had the latest testing equipment so I didn’t even need to get my script and the consultation was included in the price! We walked from here up to the Patouxay Monument – a replica of the Arc d’triomphe in Paris and cooled out tired feet in the fountain (until some official told us off of course!) We walked the long trek home (we weren’t prepared to pay the tourist prices that the tuk-tuks were asking at the fountain) and on the way found a cool little pub area for tea.

Khampiane Hotel, Rue Hengbounnoy, Vientiane (The hotel was great except for the bloody barking dog and they did warn us about the building site across the road)