Postcard from Vientiane

Vientiane itself is an amazing city, its colonial French architecture in bad decay (below), an ancient market which leaks but which has an amazing range of goods for sale -- and beside it they're in the process of building a modern three-storey shopping mall! I wonder what effect this will have on the old market?


 
There are ultra modern hotels too, like the Lao Plaza where I've stayed for the last couple of nights. And modern buildings like the Telecoms one. But the roads in the city, apart from a couple of boulevards built between the Government building and the President's home, are pretty scrappy.

They're working on them, but you have to be very careful where you walk on the footpaths, and sometimes the flagstones covering access to the sewer system have crumbled and there are open holes.
 
I went for a four-hour walk around the city, and got myself wonderfully lost in the process. Among other things I came across the principal local food market, a wonderful place of buzz and colour and I was the only westerner walking through it.
 


It is no wonder these people look so healthy -- the variety of vegetables on offer are marvellous, much of it stuff that I don't recognise but all of it colourful and clean and in great supply.
 


I came across the fish section, which was a little disconcerting: the fish were alive, swimming around in basins on the stalls, and when a customer made a selection, the stallholder picked it out and with a cleaver immediately chopped off head and tail, and then gutted the thing. Then it was popped into a plastic bag and that was it.
Fresh fish, yes?



Meantime, here's a picture of the local private 'buses'. More anon.

Brian.