Vientiane

We hopped on a Tuk-Tuk in Nong Khai and journeyed 10 minute along the Mekong to reach the Friendship Bridge, the end of Thailand and the start of Laos. We scrambled onto a very crowded bus with our backpacks to cross the bridge and then bought our visas from the surprisingly efficient (and honest) Laos border police. From there, it was another short taxi ride into Vientiane. On driving into Vientiane, you can immediately feel the change of pace.  Thailand was already very chilled but Laos is something else. It’s hard to describe but to say that the place is laid back is putting it very very mildly. Luckily, being as Dan and were of like mind, it was not hard at all to adjust.

Kermit before BBQ

We arrived at our very French and very quaint hotel (Hotel Khamvongsa) by the Mekong river. The hotel was simply adorable and our favourite to date. We liked it so much we found it extremely hard to leave the room but forced ourselves out simply to eat the amazing breakfast every morning-fresh mangos, Belgian waffles, pancake gateaus, warm croissants etc. My mouth still waters when I think about it.

Vientiane is surprisingly small for a capital city and is very French in essence complete with it’s own Arc de Triomphe replica. Funnily enough, it is referred to as ‘the vertical runway’ by the guidebooks as it was built out of cement donated by the USA in 1969 for a new airport.

On our first night in Vientiane, we walked down the Mekong river browsing the night market and salivating over the restaurants cooking and serving food along the walkway. We stopped to eat at one of these and were a bit perturbed when we saw the giant frogs waiting in a bucket to be stripped and roasted. One of the delicacies happened to be roasted frog skin salad! Appetising as that sounded, I sadly had to give it a miss. The great thing about Laos keeping it’s strong French heritage is that you can get good wine in majority of the restaurants, something that I have really missed in the rest of Asia.

Post ATM - Lao Millionaires

The next day, we spent the day wondering around the city, checked out the National museum and realised there was not much else to do but eat so we devoted a great amount of time and money to that particular pursuit. We checked out the obligatory temples and having denoted the appropriate amount of time to culture, decided to get our physical needs taken care of with a lovely Thai massage. That night, we went to a supposedly great French restaurant recommended by the Lonely planet. I absolutely love French food so was really looking forward to it only to receive something that looked like it was a frozen dinner that was warmed in the microwave. I would have been okay with that too but it was the cockroach that I discovered in my fish midway through the meal that finally made me decide I really could not eat any more! Even the excellent (and now free) creme brulee could not make things right.

The next morning, still traumatised by the memories of the floating cockroach dinner, Dan and I decided to visit the COPE centre which is an organisation dedicated to supporting the victims of UXO (unexploded ordnance). We were really shocked to hear the facts: the USA dropped 260 submunition bombs on Laos between 1964 and 1973 and 78 million of them failed to explode. What is more shocking is that Laos had more bombs dropped on it then were dropped in the entirety of Europe during the second world war. Sadly, majority of the victims appear to be young children who are out playing in the fields. It was a very enlightening and very touching visit-I had no idea about this issue until now. What’s really shocking is the lacklustre effort being made by the US to clean up the mess.

Touring another temple

As I alluded to earlier there really wasn't that much to do in Laos's capital city. Luckily we were quite happy taking daily massages, browsing 'replica' watches, eating til we burst and sipping cheap, quality wines.

Vietnam visa - $50 a go

The rest of the time in Vientiane, we spent riding around on a motorcycle but as there were not too places we go, that only took a few hours a day. Our one achievement was getting our Vietnam visas sorted. I was a little nervous about Dan driving as this is the second time he has done it but he drove like a pro. Thinking about taking motorcycle lessons when we get back.