February 15, 2007
Rest Day in Vientiane: Patuxai monument and Thalat Sao
Nothing new, we are up at 5:30am turn on CNN to watch the news from our bed for a while. Our neighbors bang on the wall to have us turn down the volume. We say we are sorry and turn the volume down.
At 7am we have a nice breakfast in the eating room of eggs, toast, coffee and juice and bacon. Then we walk to the Patuxai monument we saw on our way in yesterday. Patuxai (means Victory Gate), is a four-sided victory arch that somewhat resembles the "Arc de Triomphe" in Paris, dedicated to those who struggled for independence from France. This one though was made in 1968 from cement, purchased by the USA that was supposed to have been used for the construction of a new airport.... the arch is therefore sometimes referred to as "the vertical runway."
There are souvenir stands on the first and second level and from the top there are nice views over the city and the Mekong to the South. The sky is very hazy though...close up it is apparent that this arch won't outlast the "real" one in Paris, concrete is chipping already. We walk back to the Thalat Sao, a huge covered market area. Patrick found some more cheap Sony DVD's for our pictures. We also stumble upon something like a "witches" market with women selling all kinds of dried roots, herbs, some bones, monkey claws, horns and so on.
We have a great lunch sandwich at the "Scandinavian bakery" and return to our room to relax during the hottest part of the day. We find out it has gotten hot and humid again the past couple of days, close to 36C. It's nice to have a room with AC and satellite TV.
At dusk, which is between 5 and 6pm, we walk to the Mekong and have a beer Lao at a small eatery along the riverbank. The menu looks good so we stay for dinner and have a Pad Thai and a Curry vegetable with rice. For dessert we pick up a flan pie wedge at the bakery down the street.
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