we arrived on monday afternoon not realising that it was a public holiday- the La
o boat racing festival. it's an annual boat racing festival to mark the end of the Buddhist Lent. crazy fun (too bad i didn't manage to get any good photos!)
what we hadn't realised was that almost all the shops would be closed including the money changer. i was going to just exchange my US dollars for Lao kips at the airport, but boss said that there were many money changers near the hotel that offered good rates. During my walk, before i met boss for dinner, i realised that all of them were closed. And the hotels didn't exchange currencies either!
we walked and walked, and when we did find an open money exchange, it was already closing and refused to help us exchange our cash. we resorted to withdrawing cash from the ATM, but even then we had to walk up and down looking for one which accepted our cards. Obviously the Lao-Viet bank wasn't 'sophisticated' enough to puke out money for us!
boss, relieved to find a reputable ANZ atm to draw money from!
Labels: travel bug, Vientiane
