Hello Nong Khai

Day One

First and foremost, I was greatly impressed by the ease of which we crossed the Friendship Bridge and passed the border into Thailand. For 30 baht each (less than two dollars) we had an air conditioned bus take us from Vientiane to the bridge - with a stop at the Laos departure area to get our stamp - across the bridge, to Thailand immigration and right into the heart of Nong Khai. The whole journey took about 2 hours and was completely flawless. We tuk-tuked it to Mut Mee guesthouse (which got a glowing review in our Let's Go guide) only to discover it was closed. The owner, who is very nice and gave us a free map of Nong Khai, recommended another guesthouse that was close by (which also happened to be in our book). Less then 10 minutes later we were set up with a very nice (and clean room) at Ruan Thai Guesthouse. We spent the afternoon wandering the streets of Nong Khai. We had our very first taste of mangos and sticky rice (so good), visited the Village Weaver Handicrafts store (www.villageweaver.net) and looked through the Indochina Market. This market reminded me of chinatown in Victoria. The same plastic toys, paper fans and strange looking candies which I thought I left behind in B.C. were right in front of me again. Although it was nice to laugh about the similarities, it didn't make for the best shopping :)

For dinner we had planned to go back to Mut Mee guesthouse - their restaurant was supposed to be amazing. When we got there we were surrounded by mosquitoes - the guesthouse is right on the Mekong. The bugs were so bad that we had to leave and find dinner in town away from the bugs. We had good eats none the less.

Day Two

Today we rented bicycles and made the 5 km ride out to Salakeawkoo, an amazing sculpture park just south of the city. It was completely worth the ride out and the sore butts afterwards! It was made in 1976 by a shaman named Luang Poo Boun Leua Sourirat. He created one near Vientiane as well, but in '74 he fled to Thailand where he built his second wonder. I have never seen anything like it in my entire life - probably one of my favourite places so far on this trip. It was a strange mixture of Indian and Buddhist mythology and imagery. Check out this website for tons of information on it and some great pictures (just in case Paul didn't get our even better pictures uploaded in time :) http://www.mutmee.net/030010_sculpture_park.htm

We went inside the temple which was covered in pictures of this one person. At the time we didn't know who it was and became especially curious when we reached the third floor. At the back there was what appeared to be a dead body in a bubble like object. We now know this to be Sourirat who died in 1996 - they have housed his mummified body there since then.

In my opinion, his best work was The Wheel of Life which was at the back of the sculpture park. It was Sourirat's view of the cycles and influences that enter into ones life from the moment of conception to death. It was absolutely stunning in its honesty and beauty. I could have stayed there all day.

We finally left the park and rode our bikes to Wat Po Chai which is considered to be Nong Khai's "main temple" which says a lot because there are A LOT of wats in this city. The temple itself looked pretty new, but it was the Buddha inside that has an interesting story. While it was being transported from Laos to Nong Khai, lightening struck the raft it was being carried on and it sunk to the bottom of the Mekong. Twenty five years later the Buddha miraculously resurfaced. It was considered to be a miracle and who am I to argue??

We've decided to leave Nong Khai tomorrow and travel to Udon Thani. We should have more to report from there.