{"id":120,"date":"2008-04-25T23:16:11","date_gmt":"2008-04-25T12:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/25\/vientiane\/"},"modified":"2008-05-02T21:58:01","modified_gmt":"2008-05-02T10:58:01","slug":"vientiane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/25\/vientiane\/","title":{"rendered":"Vientiane"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Had breakfast (yet another restaurant with &#8220;Friends&#8221;), then a shower (maybe the best shower I&#8217;ve had in four months) .  After the shower I inquired about buses to Vientiane, and was told I&#8217;d have to wait till 1:30pm.  Figuring I might have better luck at the bus station, I grabbed my stuff (much easier now that I am travelling light) and walked five minutes to the bus station.<\/p>\n<p>Found a minibus that was headed to Vientiane in 5 minutes, so I opted for that one, and before I could get the change for my ticket, the bus arrived.  Met three people on the bus, John,\u00c2\u00a0 Zarko, and Joanne.<\/p>\n<p>In Vientiane, John said he had some friend&#8217;s staying at Joe&#8217;s Guesthouse, which was conveniently located across from where we were dropped off.  John and I decided to share a room, and cut down on costs.  I had a bunch of stuff I hoped to get done before the weekend, so my first stop was the Cambodian Embassy.  When I got there, it was closed, so I had to wait about an hour for them to return after lunch.  When they reopened they told me they weren&#8217;t issuing Visas in the afternoon, so I&#8217;d have to wait till Monday.  Joy.<\/p>\n<p>Next stop was the Australian Embassy, which caters to Canadian traveller&#8217;s too.  I wanted them to make sure my Police Report was on the up and up, but there wasn&#8217;t much they could do.  He told me I&#8217;d have to visit the Laos Tourism Police for a Loss Claim, and pointed me on my way.<\/p>\n<p>By the time I got to the Laos Tourism Police, they were closing for the day, and shut down over the weekend.  Quite convenient.  At least I know I&#8217;ll be staying here until Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Met up with John, Zarko, and Joanne, plus John&#8217;s friends: Jazz, Emma, Mary and Kate.  I was the only non-Brit in attendance, but I think I managed okay.  We headed out for dinner, but the place we&#8217;d chosen was pretty pricey, so we opted for a drink only.  We were joined by Jed, an American from Duluth, who knew Kate and Mary.  Eventually we headed to a nice Italian restaurant, as everyone was in the mood for western food.  I had some pasta, which was pretty good, plus some garlic bread and a slice of pizza.<\/p>\n<p>We headed to a Mexican bar that had some live band karaoke.  Kate had some pretty good chops, and sung a few tunes.  Everything closes early in Laos, so we were all back to the guesthouse by 11:30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Had breakfast (yet another restaurant with &#8220;Friends&#8221;), then a shower (maybe the best shower I&#8217;ve had in four months) . After the shower I inquired about buses to Vientiane, and was told I&#8217;d have to wait till 1:30pm. Figuring I might have better luck at the bus station, I grabbed my stuff (much easier now [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,40],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}