I came here by myself, originally for a visa run. I would guess that the average person stays in the city for 2-3 days so other expats are always eager to meet long-term residents. The Lao people are incredibly welcoming and friendly so once you meet one, you'll instantly know a lot of people. My friends range from bargirls to doctors to embassy officials.

Generally its easy to get to know people as they are easy-going and unless they hate you they will nearly always include you in their circle.

Also many Lao people love gambling, many different cardgames are played all the time. I play (small stakes) variations of chinese poker and Big 2 almost everyday with local people.. The money is always kept in the pockets or under the table though, in case any wandering officials should feel like claiming their share.

Anyway, I was just gonna give u guys some links since it can be a pain to find good internet resources on Lao.

Also. maybe I can answer some things. ive spent altogether maybe 6-8 months here. But im a heavy weedsmoker so details may be hazy.

Btw, about internet, right now im in my new apartment and surfing through GPRS,EDGE on my mobile phone, with a prepaid sim card. Im soon gonna get a wireless connection, they have a huge antenna on top of a big hotel here, that transmits wireless broadband in vientiane. its like 50 bucks a month.

http://www.retire-asia.com/ - Alot of nice info, i like these especially>
http://www.retire-asia.com/laovientiane.shtml
http://www.retire-asia.com/lao-heart-culture.shtml
http://www.retire-asia.com/culturechange.shtml

www.laohub.com , www.laosmile.com - communities for lao youth, mainly in english language. also laoconnection.com.

http://www.seasite.niu.edu/lao/LaoLa...anguage_fp.htm
//excellent and comprehensive free lao language course. check it.

Roamer, it's $50/month for 1gb total upload and download. Unlimited plans are ridiculously expensive. I've heard that it's very fast and very reliable so I'm going to use it for poker and a separate DSL connection for everything else. If you see someone 8-tabling on a 17" Dell somewhere stop in and say hi.

Thanks for the links. What are some of your favorite restaurants and places to go outside of the Chinatown and the city center? Do you know a bar called "Art TeeTong's Jai Dee Restaurant" on the street between Music House and TexMex? If you could eliminate either annoying tuk-tuk drivers or "Hotel California," which would you pick?

do they have ATMs there now? what currency are they in? what is the exchange rate for Thai baht and USD against the Kip? please describe how you handle your finances. thanks.

There are plenty of ATMs in the major cities now. As I understand it, this is a change from even a year ago. The dollar bounces between 9500 and 9900 kip but most places accept 10k to the dollar for simplicity. You see a lot of prices in dollars because it's much easier to write $35 than 3500000 (they hardly use commas for some reason) kip. The exchange rate for the baht is terrible at something like 27baht=10k kip. Once I finally get settled (after this next visa run) I'm going to open an account in USD at one of the banks here. I think you only need $500 or so to open an account. I'm going to check with the Thai banks here to see if I could access my money in Thailand in case there's a natural disaster or bloody coup or something here. Right now I'm just using my epassporte card to withdraw cash.

Forgot to mention that you can use kip, baht or dollars just about anywhere. I'm increasingly seeing places that take euros, but these are major tourist places.

just read between the lines and u may find something useful in this post

Heard the name of that Art place before, but havent been there - what kind of place is it?

Since I love to gamble I often go to play pool or snooker in the Lao Bowling Center, they have excellent tables and imo its comfortable and friendly there. Loads of girls go there to bowl also, and you can just sit and drink too if you want. Another place I play pool sometimes is Bor Pen Nyang but the tables there are really not good for anything but messing around with while getting drunk and pimpin hoes.

Last time I was here I used to go to the lao discos all the time, like Future, Dtac(Novotel), Meena, Marina, Tops... They are fun if you go with a group of people.

Not really sure what u mean by neither chinatown or city center, hehe. But in my head the morning market is the center. Theyve finished a shopping mall there now, its kind of half-empty still though. The MM is still a great place for shopping for almost anything. The last week Ive kinda been hanging in my apartment mostly, nice to have a home after 6months of hotels and guesthouses. like to go to the vietnamese area of town too, just chilling with vietnamese coffee in some backyard cafe. that is north around that luang.

Tuk Tuks suck, they are noisy and uncomfortable, and they always rip you - but I hate more the increasing number of big cars that are filling up the city some with maniac drive, probably finishing off their share of motorbike riders. I was in Cambodia a few months ago, where around 500 people are killed in traffic every month, only in the capital city of Phnom Penh. Lao people drive generally easier, but as the traffic increases its gonna get worse here cause the roads are really small.

Ive witnessed about 3-4 accidents here the last few weeks alone.. and riding home last night i saw 2 roadkilled cats, about 500m apart.. One of them had his head scompletely ground into the asphalt. Hmm wait I think that one was on the sidewalk too, ([censored] getting deeper) . Anyway tuktuks are mostly annoying if you actually use them, I drive everywhere anyway.
So my answer to question C must be the "Hotel California" karaoke singing, that and "take me 2 your heart".

ATMs are on every corner of Vientiane now. When I first visited in 2001 there were none. But in 2005 they had a few.
So I just use kip from my VISA card at the ATMs. Some of them (among others the one on the mekong from BCEL) charge u 20 000 kip per transaction, and the maximum withdrawal amount is just 700 000.
The new ones from Lao development bank and others, are without this extra and dispense 1m illion kip ($100) at a time.

In 2001 the largest denomination banknote here was 5000kip, and I had huge wads of cash after changing alot at the border. But now they have got up to 50.000kip, (yay! $5) Its rare though. But you dont really need hundreds of dollars in cash here either, unless your rental honda gets stolen and u have to pay $1000 cash for it to get your passport back, and in that case u just go to a bank..

Neteller is closed here, I found that out as the [censored] closed my account and froze all my money like 4 months ago. THe idiots demand that I travel to a country where its not banned before they can open it. Now thats good service.

Yeah the thai bath has been strengthened alot the last few months, but its not certain thats gonna last. As you also know the USD has weakened considerably. The Lao kip hasnt diverted alot from its rate to the dollar though. As a result many goods here that are imported from thailand have become more expensive.

There is a branch of Bangkok Bank here, Ive been there a few times to get cash advances from my VISA card. Its near the morning market, on the other side of lane xang avenue, and next to the immigration office. Maybe they can help you with something.

Link Time

http://www.vientiane4fun.com/
Nice little page with info about hotels, nightclubs, bars, entertainment etc.

http://www.travelfish.org/country/laos
Looks like a good travelguide with maps.

http://www.saycocie.1colony.com/
A lao man is telling the very detailed story of his life of growing up in vientiane.

http://www.yellowpages-lao.com/
Good for finding businesses, telephone numbers, etc

roamer,

what are you doing in laos? what visa do you have? you get kip out of the atm or usd?

Art's is kind of a semi-dive-friendly-neighborhood-bar-type place. The owner and one guy who's always there are fellow Americans and also interesting to talk to. It usually isn't very busy so if you go on an off night you might find yourself drinking alone. The food sucks, so don't go on an empty stomach.

By city center I mean the area from Lane Xang Ave to maybe around Bor Pen Nyang. Basically where 99% of the white people are. China town is right next to it. The Swedish Baking House is in this area. When you see a bunch of Chinese restaurants and signs in Chinese, you'll know you've found it.

The third floor of Bor Pen Nyang seems to have good tables, but I really, really suck at pool (and have no idea how to even play snooker) so I might not be the best judge of this.

I wasn't aware of Neteller not working. I guess I'll just get a moneybookers account or something now. What do you use?

KKF, the ATMs dispense kip. From my understanding if you have an account in USD, you have to into the bank and withdraw dollars. Roamer, correct me if I'm wrong about this.

Yo whatup sabaidee.

Ah yes my favourite question. (mom, thats not you is it?)

-Im helping disabled street-children to rehabilitate from drugs and learn english.
-I contribute blood to 3 different hospitals each month, including a vet clinic.
-Im relishing the rich culture in this forgotten land of lore and culture and whatnot.
-Im taking in the buddhist way of life, freeing myself from the western cultures rat-race.
-Im just constantly thinking about how supercool and alternative I am for living here.


Or maybe it was actually like this:

-Im grooming up young virgin lao girls from poor families whose most valuable asset in this world is their daughers flower, to believe i will marry them, then I [censored] them and move on.
-Im trying to kill myself by speedracing an old rickety chinese motorbike at night, in rain, without helmet or even shoes, crazily drunk and high on whatever drugs are available.
-Im playing MTT poker all night and sleeping all day.
-Im buying heaps of $1.50 DVDs and watch them one time then leave them gathering dust, even though i could rent them for $0.50.
-Im recklessly tearing up earths layer of ozone with my grossly excessive and selfish airconditioning.
-Im just constantly thinking about how supercool and alternative I am for living here.


Just the $25 one that u get at the border, which is valid for a month. If you wanna extend this at the immigration office, its $2 a day, so the best solution for me is just crossing the border into thailand and back, buying another $25 visa. I then also get to do some shopping and other stuff in Nong Khai, which is about an hour from here by bus/tuktuk.

Only kip, which sucks. And you better know where you are going if you wanna take out alot of cash. Me myself needed a few hundred $$ yesterday, but the ATM i was at only gave 10.000kip notes, so that was 100 banknotes for 1 million kip (ca$100), then I went to another ATM and cashed out another 1million, but this time it was 50.000 notes so I got only a small stash of 20 freshly printed notes per 1million kip (which is maximum per transaction). It really makes a difference to get 20 fresh banknotes as opposed to 100 old stinky dirty ones.

Bring some $100 bills with you if u come, nice to have some backup cash.

------------------------------------------------------------
What I came here to post before getting distracted by that little Q%A session:

So today, the guy came and installed internet at my place. I got deal that gives me unlimited upload/download for $50 a month, but at a limited speed of 128-192kbps or something. anyway its more than fast enough for playing poker and surfing. A huge improvement from my GPRS connection.
The setup fee was $30 and I paid a $150 deposit for the equipment (modem, cables and a 10ft antenna on the roof) So far so good

WhoIam... good news for you

Laos Considers Tuk-Tuk Ban

By Jamie Lee

VIENTIANE (Reuters Life!) - Tuk tuks are to Southeast Asia what horse-drawn carriages were to Europe centuries ago, but the iconic and ubiquitous three-wheeled auto-rickshaw could soon disappear from Laos.

Vientiane is home to about 3,800 vividly painted tuk tuks that ferry both tourists and locals around the bustling city.

Similar to the tuk tuks of Bangkok, these motorized rickshaws are cheap and convenient, but now some city officials want them off the road by 2010 to curb traffic congestion and accidents, as well as modernize the city's transport system.

The tuk tuk ban has yet to be approved by the government, but more than 30 new public buses are due to start operating in Vientiane soon, a sign many tuk tuk enthusiasts said could point to the end of an era.

"The tourists like tuk tuks. They are cheap and are the traditional vehicles of Laos," said Bouaxeng Phetsalath, manager of Vientiane's Tuk Tuk Association. "Maybe they think they're not beautiful any more."

"The tuk tuks are everywhere in Laos," added city resident Thongamala Sayavong. "Without them, I feel like I'm not in Laos." Handicap International Belgium, a non-governmental organization that tracks the number of road accident victims in Laos, fears the ban could actually worsen traffic in Vientiane as more people would rely on their own mode of transport.

"If the ban takes place, it will lead to even more motorcycles and cars on the road," coordinator Christa Weichert said.

Of the hundreds of road accidents in Vientiane each month, only a few involve tuk tuks.

http://www.topix.net/world/laos/2007...auto-rickshaws

I don't have a problem with tuk tuks, I just think the drivers should be shot. From the second I walk outside, the air is filled with people shouting "TUK-TUK!" at me. I used to be polite but now I just say "no" with mixture of disgust and contempt. Half the time I still get the inevitable "you want something? Marijuana? Lady?"

One of these days I'm going to completely loose it and start screaming "Look goddamnit, if I wanted a [censored] tuk tuk I would go to one of the many tuk tuks by the side of the road. Since I'm walking by your vehicle without saying anything, no, I clearly do not need a [censored] tuk tuk." This would be while I'm stabbing him. Don't even get me started on when guy number 10 in a line of 10 tuk tuks yells out "TUK-TUK!" after he's just seen me turn down two other people ten feet away. That's right [censored], there was something so incredibly [censored] compelling about your tuk tuk that I couldn't wait to jump in it. Or maybe those ten feet of walking totally exhaused me to the point where I couldn't even conceive of walking to my destination.

Ok, serious answer time. There's no way this gets approved. There's no alternate service apart from a few taxis that are actual cars and these just try to charge white people ridiculous fees. The locals need tuk tuks for transportation, especially things too big to fit on a motorbike. The big tuk tuks ("jumbos") serve as shuttle busses and run fixed routes. I have seen more buses recently, but by "new" they mean "new to Vientiane." These things are over 30 years old. Traffic isn't much of a problem except for a few areas at rush hour.

AFter spending 3 months in cambodia earlier this year and then coming back to laos, I always wondered why there aren't motobike taxis here- So much more convenient even more comfortable.

Btw.. u should be reading this forum also.. Thaivisa.com, the good old community for anything thailand related has recently opened a southeast asia subforum and there are plenty laos expats around there.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showforum=123

btw man.. .rent a motobike when u go on visa run.. its like 20 minutes out to the bridge, a pleasant ride and u can park it safely at the lao side while u go nuts in thailand for a few hrs.

WhoIam, are you still in a long-term hotel?

roamer, how did you find your apartment, and what sort of deposit was required? How widely available are short-term rentals for tourists?