The Amazing and Spectacular Dinosaur Museum in Savannakhet

Some days we just don't have anything planned and traveling in Laos has brought us a lot of those days. Life is so relaxed here that it's difficult not to take part in the art of chilling and relaxing. Often with a big bottle of Laos' pride and joy: BeerLao.

On one of those days, in Savannakhet we decided to go to a museum and what kind of museum is more awesome than a dinosaur museum!? Thing is, in Laos things often aren't what you expect and you'll end up spending a dollar on something that's worth, well, maybe just that dollar...

The dinosaur museum in Savannakhet was one of those places and I just loved every minute of the ten minutes we spent there. Things don't always have to be spectacular and amazing or so perfect that the pictures could make it on the cover of National Geographic magazine. Some things are beautiful in their own way. Humble local sights often give me more pleasure than the places tourist guides say you must visit.

We arrived at the museum in the afternoon and there was no one. The keeper had just come back from his lunch break and we payed him the 20,000 Kip to enter. He turned on the air conditioning for us, let us in and there it was: Two rooms filled with fossils and dinosaur bones stored in old brown vitrines. Most of the text was in Lao or French so we didn't understand much of it but from the brochure we received, we learned that most of the bones were found in Laos by french paleontologists.

The most impressive items were the large femurs of some kind of Diplodocus-like dinosaur and the large, LED lit dinosaur shape on the wall. Aside from bones there were some meteorite fragments and fossilized trees. In the second room there was a table with a computer, some dried out limes, half-empty Pringles boxes and a water heater. For visitors? We're not sure but anyway, that was it. The Dinosaur Museum in Savannakhet; amazing and spectacular in it's own way. Loved it.