Monks on bikes

It is funny how fast a horendous journey can quickly be forgotten. Actually to be honest it was not that bad, just uncomfortable and that was my own doing from:

1. leaving it too late to get a good price for a flight
2. booking on a budget carrier for long distance
3. trying to save more money by having to take more flights than sensible

It is not comfortable sitting on a plane in full enduro bike gear and then having to run through airports in mid-thirty temperatures to catch connections and so I arrived in Vientiane tired and hot. But from when I got off the plane everything just became easy - guards at customs greeting with smiles, easy paperwork to get a visa ("no photo? no problem") and then a cab ride that made the most of a passing police escort into town. Straight away it felt more relaxed, not like when you turn up in a city like Delhi and it is manic.
It seems to be that wherever you go, there is always something happening. When I went to Darjeiling a few years ago it coincided (coincidentally) with a visit from the Dalai Lama. In Vientiane today delegates and participants were turning up for the South East Asian games. These are all prefered to the time I discovered that I was in Prague at the same time as an IMF conference when I walked into the middle of a protest with police firing tear gas.
Before coming I spoke with my cousin and his wife about Laos as they had visited a number of times. It would appear that a lot has happened since their last visit 4 or so years ago. Sightings of  "exotic" cars such as Mercedes and Lexus and even a Mustang place Vientiane away from how I imagined it - I was envisaging more of a Kathmandu which I visited in 2003, but this place is cleaner and easier going and more developed, but not in a bad way.
And being a bike rider I love seeing all these different types of bikes - the Chinese and Japanese scooters, the police on their big cruisers all in white - police and bike. Coming from Sydney where the police are big males on big BMW's, it was a wonderful sight to see two females with plaits all the way down their backs riding two up on the big white bike waving as they went past, followed by a monk on a scooter sitting side saddle. And then there are the Tuk-Tuk or whatever they are called in this part of the world. You can see how they have chopped up a Suzuki and converted it into something capable of carrying a family of ten. In some ways it is like a country town in Australia - everyone either is in a ute or on a bike.
But for now the sounds and smells of fish cooking over charcoal are calling me and I think that I need to catch up on a few hours sleep. I have a bike organised and so in two days I will be heading off into the rural towns and villages and hopefully posting some photos along the way.