After spending 4 wonderful days in Luang Prabang, it was time to say good bye. We will be leaving on the 9 am bus headed for Vientiane . We walked to the market in search for breakfast and settled for a bowl of pho at a stall beside the market.
This was the first time that we get to choose the type of noodles to have, either meehoon, koayteow or the laksa type thicker noodles, since we hadn’t tried the latter, both of us choose to have the thicker rice noodles, and as was customary, we get our basket of greens plus another plate consisting of chili padi, long beans, spring onions and lime.
This was probably the best pho that we had in Luang Prabang, the noodles were springy the soup was delicious , the meat was tender – no complaints ! We paid 10,000kip ( ~RM4 per bowl- which was the charge for foreigners as we saw locals paying 7,000kip/bowl)
As we still have some time, we took a walk at the market place and see if we can buy something for the road, we were curious what were wrapped in the banana leaves parcels and bought one of each (500kip and 1,000 kip respectively)
Walked back to the hotel and saw a tuk2 parked in front of our guest house, ahhh ! he is early, lucky we were all packed,rushed up to our room to get our luggage and settled the bill for our 5 night stay at Oudomsouk Guest House ( total USD40)
The tuk2 dropped us off at the Bannaluang bus station – nice and clean, no heavy fumes and the best thing was the toilets were clean !
While waiting for the bus, we decide to settle the mystery of the banana parcels : the 500kip parcel was a black blob- with a chewy starchy texture probably made with glutinous rice flour and coconut milk – this was good ! after unwrapping 3 layers of leaves, we unveiled the the 1,000kip parcel , turned out to be black glutinous rice topped with some coconut milk creamy thingy ( it even came with a plastic spoon – so considerate one lah), again, another hit ! Yummy
At about 8:45, we were asked to get on the bus and at 9 am, the bus left the station, I wonder if buses in Malaysia are so prompt? The bus was rather empty ( I think there was only ~ 10 pax ?) and we could sit where we wanted to ( although seat numbers were written on the tickets) .
I find the bus journey from Luang Prabang to Vientiane much tougher that from Vientiane to Luang Prabang, namely because we didn’t have much time to get acclimatized to the bus and then we already came to the unending winding roads. I looked away as I saw someone sitting in front reaching for the plastic (vomit) bag…..
We stopped for lunch at a really nice looking restaurant ( lunch was included in the 130,000 kip ticket) at the hillside, the weather was very cool ( read : cold) and we could see the hills and the clouds as we have lunch.
Finaaalllly, after 9 hours on the bus, we arrived at Vientiane. We shared a tuk2 with some other passenger and headed to the city centre and back to the guest house that we stayed earlier – Sousouly Guesthouse…it’s nice to have some familiarity – I guess..
After a bit of a wash, we headed out for dinner – pizza at Via Veing – which according to some sites on the www – served the best pizza in Vientiene
The environment was nice and cozy , red table cloth draped over wooded table, some of the dinners seemed to be regulars, some came for takeaways as well
I ordered a soda lime and HC had a 7 up, and follow up with a sangria ( which caused a bit of a lightheadedness later )
For the pizza, we were greedy and went for the ‘4 seasons’ which have the most ingredients compared to the other toppings on the menu.
Total bill came to 45,000kip ( ~ RM18). I won’t say it was sensational pizza, taste just like regular pizza we can get back home
