We are slowing down to the pace of life in this country. Strolling the streets in the morning, hanging out at a cafe for the heat of the day and strolling a bit more in the evening. Vientianne might be the capital of Laos, but you’d be hard pressed to guess that when standing on the streets. At only 133,000 people in the city, the place is quiet.
Our big event here was adding pages to our passport at the U.S. Embassy a few blocks away. This took about 40 minutes in a brand new, sterile yet pleasant building sitting (in neat rows of chairs) with many locals patiently waiting to get U.S. passports. We picked up a book that was sitting by one of the bullet-proof/bomb-proof window stalls that offered us an overview of the 50 states. It was a hand-colored rundown of the population, flags and state mascots. It was rather a dull book, but we were pleased to note that the Maine Coon Cat is officially the state cat of Maine. Every state should have a state feline.
Our strolls took us by the victory monument (built with concrete from the U.S. intended for a runway during the war years), the Wat of the Heavy Buddha (he was huge), the Lao Aviation office for more risky flight coupons, the park pavillion where aerobics were in full swing to Lao pop music and past many ex-pat ‘French’ restaurants. The Lao coffee is superb, the baguettes as good as Paris, the pho takes honors and the Italian pizza is, well, almost adequate. Okay, so the food isn’t perfect here… but the ex-pats don’t have it too bad.
Our morning coffee stop consisted of listening to two embassy officials comparing where they had been stationed in the past. The lists included such gems as the Congo, Ghana, Taiwan, and one of them was hoping he’d eventually make it to the Bangkok embassy. What an odd life they must live, switching countries and languages so dramatically.
