Capital Dreams

Vientiane is unlike any other capital in the world.

In places it has the wide-open boulevards, historical authenticity, and self-assurance of any other capital, but the overwhelming feeling is one of tranquility and timelessness. The city isn't carved into discernable districts. There's no banking district. No shopping district. No entertainment district. The place is just a gentle amalgam of stupas, temples, monuments, embassies and unhurried commerce. For a capital, the streets are deserted. Few cars populate the roads---which are still being constructed even in the centre of the city. The buildings are generally single leveled, and a great expanse of blue sky is visible almost anywhere you go.

It's very relaxing.

At one point during the day I stumbled across Laos' National Stadium. Thinking there might be a national football team having a training session I entered the complex. Maybe they'd be a slim possibility of hiring the ground for a kick-about with the other travellers I'd met on the long bus ride here.

I poked around the dusty car-park outside the ground looking for the reception. There didn't seem to be one. However the doors to the stadium proper and the changing rooms were open. I could've wandered in and treated the place like home. Imagining doing that back home at Wembley made me chuckle. You wouldn't get near the stands, never mind the England dressing room.

Eventually a porter type wandered out. I rifled through my photocopied Lonely Planet trying to find the language page. Before I could get a chance to book the pitch using the basic phrases supplied in the guidebook---"Can I have...", "I'd like a strong coffee." etc---he disappeared back into the building.

In the afternoon I hired a bike and cycled up to the famous stupa, Pha That Luang. In Laos, the tourist machine isn't as well-oiled as other places and the temple was a fascinating snapshot of a site in transition from primarily religious to commercial significance. Worshippers mingled with tourists. Rows of historical artifacts were interspersed with tin ashtray stands. At the entrance to the temple grounds a vendor sold souvenirs.

Later I rode along the bank of the Mekong to a bamboo bar overlooking the river. The bar was like a huge treehouse with wooden tables and seats. Sipping Beer Lao, I watched kids play on a sandbank in the middle of the wide, lazy river as the sun set. They looked like they were walking on the water which shimmered as if sprinkled with petals of gold. Their laughter bounced across the surface like skimming stones.

Was I a spolit Westerner romanticizing an ordinary day, or was I witnessing something that we're close to losing in the developed world with our minds preoccupied by growth, productivity, crime and instant gratification?