Vientiane

The last stop of Laos was Vientiane. Everyone we met along the way told us not to spend much of any time there because it was a terrible city with nothing to do. This made me think of Jakarta, a bustling, dirty, smelly, no green space type of city. I was pleasantly surprised when we did arrive to find that it was not very busy, fairly small, and not nearly as stinky. We stayed at a guesthouse right near the river and used the awesome river walk as a way to stretch out the legs after the bus ride from Vang Vieng.The sunset along here was spectacular and it was fun to see the amount of people out enjoying the evening whether they were strolling with family and friends, running, biking, or partaking in a Zumba class. This was another huge different from Jakarta. Being outside and enjoying the day or evening never happens there.

Our time in Vientiane was spent going to Wat Si Saket, a museum, and hanging out and enjoying our last day together. Wat Si Saket was a cool temple and is much different from others we've seen. It had hundreds, probably even thousands of little 'cubbies' that housed small stone and wooden Buddha statues. They covered all the wall space inside the temple from floor to ceiling and side to side. The outer buildings surrounding the temples also had the same 'cubbies' filled with Buddha statues. Some of these small cut-outs even contained two statues. In all, there had to be thousands of tiny Buddha statues plus hundreds of larger statues. We did get to see a bit of restoration work being done on the paintings inside the temple. I've never seen that before and it looked like an incredibly, hot and painstakingly slow process. The museum we visited was a little less than impressive as it was dark and offered no descriptions of what we were looking at.

While eating brunch at a cafe, we did meet two Americans who happened to be there on a business trip for their company that offers teaching solutions for schools and universities abroad. After sharing the short version of the how I came to be backpacking through Laos story, they invited us to sit with them and explain how we came to work in Jakarta at such a young age. It was a fantastic networking opportunity that I stumbled into on accident. It was great talking to them, sharing our experiences we had at BBS, and hearing the ways they help their new teachers adjust to being in a new culture and country and the support they offer. I'm not sure what the future holds for me but I hope this organization is somehow involved!

Vientiane is where Danna and I parted ways. She went on to Taiwan to visit Chinese teachers we became friends with at BBS. I moved on to Cambodia where after much confusion, eventually met up with my old roommate Kristina. After 3 months of traveling with Danna, it's a little weird not having her around but I've thoroughly enjoyed my time bumming around the temples of Angkor Wat and catching up with Kristina.