this dish says 'the most popular fruit in the world.' not sure what the fruit is supposed to be...
met up with toon again in vientiane. had just enough time to visit one of the major wats before it closed. actually, they weren't even going to let us in.
buddhas, buddhas everywhere (of course)
i always find the clothed buddhas especially funny (as well as perplexing). in fact, this shirt seems to have been especially made for a buddha statue, as while it's the color of a monk's robe, it is not a robe, and i've never seen a monk wear such a shirt. the pocket, though, would seem to indicate pajamas. hmmmm...
(the sashes make more sense to me.)
it was getting near sundown, so we left (ok, maybe we were kind of kicked out or would have been had we not decided to leave), so we headed to the mekong to catch the sunset.
but not without a few last pictures.
on the main road (which runs along the mekong), we passed another wat that had what i like to think of as the buddhist version of a menorah. i had to explain what a menorah was to toon. this involved the story of the miracle of the oil and such. as you can imagine, i didn't do a very good job.
menorah wat, full view
and then we did indeed catch the sunset. after any number of riverside restaurant staff competing for our business, we walked further on away from the main strip and found the place i was looking for, which turned out to be a bit on the fancy side and quite lovely.
quite lovely indeed, no?
it was this, the bordello bus from vientiane to pakse, on which i first got sick. by which i mean vomited. several times, actually. believe it or not, it wasn't the color of this night bus that did it. it was actually the tempura at the lovely-sunset place (see previous photos of prior loveliness. guess all things must come to an end.). needless to say, it wasn't the most pleasant 12-hour overnight bus ride of my life. i should say, though, that neither was it the worst. (anyone remember any of my india stories about night buses with hong kong videos blaring, men standing in the aisles all night and flying three feet out of my sit when we hit bumps...?)
