We leave Puerta Princessa early afternoon and rather annoyingly our Air Asia flight to Manila is delayed by over 2 hours. It’s really frustrating as its our last night in Manila and we’re staying at the famous Manila Hotel. We arrive at around 8.30om in shorts and t-shirts into one of the most extraordinary opulent hotels we’ve ever stayed in. Despite our rather scruffy attire, we’re greeted with charming courtesy and whisked to our room. We shower and change rapidly and have drinks and dinner in the Tap Room and listen to a great duo for a couple of hours. We drink red wine for the first time this trip and of course, don’t show any restraint!!
We take our glasses of wine for a wander around the hotel – there’s huge 2 wedding receptions and a 50th anniversary on the go and so much finery on display and not one person bats an eyelid at our casual attire. It’s akin to staying at the Savoy without the obvious snobbery, and we just love this refreshing attitude. It actually sums up the vibrancy of the Philippines they’re just so welcoming. We retire to an enormous room and sleep soundly.
We’re up early as we’re leaving at 10am and go for a swim before breakfast. There’s must be about 200 people at breakfast but we’re shown swiftly to a table and dive headlong into the multiple options, we could’ve stayed till lunchtime eating our way through the huge range of choices but sadly its time to depart to Manila Airport for the final time!
So now, after 24 absolutely brilliant days in the Philippines 🇵🇠which we cannot recommend highly enough, it’s time for us to board our 9th flight and head for Bangkok, where we’ll change planes and board flight number 10 to Vientiane the capital of Laos 🇱🇦
We fly with Thai Airways and the flights are pretty much on time despite a last minute gate change at Bangkok which annoys us slightly. We arrive at Vientiane Airport and are mightily relieved that we applied for our e-visas before we left as it’s the shortest queue by some distance. A couple of flights have landed simultaneously and passport control is busy. We join the queue and wait around 20 minutes for our passports to be stamped, fingerprints and photo taken and entry granted. Our bags are already off the carousel and awaiting collection. We locate our driver and load up the car requesting an ATM stop en route to the hotel as despite several Money Changers being open at the airport, they stated that they were closed and refused to change our dollars.
We stop at an ATM and withdraw 1 million Kip – we laugh at our new found millionaire status. I must explain at this juncture that £1 is currently worth 28,000 Kip. We’ve basically withdrawn just over £35 – this is going to be fun. They also take the dollar here, so we’ll be mixing and matching between the two and use our trusty Revolut cards for anything else.
So for the uninitiated, Laos is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, China, and Myanmar. The capital is Vientiane, situated in the middle of the country and very close to the Thai border – in fact, it’s separated here by the Mekong river. It was a French colony until it gained independence in 1953. French architecture and cuisine are still very much in evidence in the country – I cannot tell you just how much French bread I consume whilst we’re in Vientiane. Buddhism is the predominant religion, and there are temples everywhere across the country. The economy is primarily agricultural, with rice being the staple crop. Rice features very prominently in Laos cuisine, particularly sticky Rice. Laos consumes more sticky rice per capita than any other country. We’re looking forward to trying some. Laos remains one of the least developed countries in Southeast Asia, with a focus on sustainable development and ecotourism. Laos has one of the lowest car ownership rates in the world, and traffic we discover is quite low.
We have a late dinner at our hotel and adjourn to our room. Its been a long day and we retire to bed exhausted. We’re in a new country and excited to start exploring tomorrow.
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