Street View: N17°57.851′ E102°36.413′

Vientiane is the capital of Laos, situated about halfway along the north-south vertical of the country alongside the Mekong River.  The bus ride to Vientiane from Vang Vieng was a little trying, a swelteringly hot five hour trip along some extremely bumpy roads with only a quick 10 minute toilet break.  After the bus trip we weren’t in the mood for searching Vientiane for a hotel so found a fantastic little guesthouse in the city’s centre, a scrupulously clean establishment with beautiful hardwood furniture in each of the rooms.  With the lull in tourism through Southeast Asia many of the hotels are severely discounting their rooms in order to attract travelers: our room is typically $USD60 a night but the hotelier was willing to let us stay for $USD25!  A definite upgrade from the typical $USD11 to $USD15 we’ve been spending through Vietnam and northern Laos.

While Vientiane is officially the capital ‘city’ of Laos it’s really little more than a large village, an array of temples spread throughout an extensive array of restaurants, banks, embassies and drinking establishments.  Laos’ French influence was very evident as we walked about town, quite a number of French restaurants are spread around the city centre as well as a number of headquarters of French-sponsored aid organizations.  Vientiane’s morning market, Talat Sao, located a short walk from our hotel, was definitely the most laid-back market we’ve visited in Southeast Asia thus far.  Inline with the laid-back demeanor of Laos people in general, the shopkeepers were quite happy to let their merchandise speak for themselves rather than resort to the persistent haranguing we endured in all the markets through Vietnam.  In addition to the electronics and clothing typical to the markets in Southeast Asia the Vientiane morning market devoted almost an entire floor to goldsmiths.  Such an amazing amount of gold was on display, all guarded by security bearing AK-47 automatics!

Lisa planned a fun walking tour of central Vientiane one morning, taking us past the aforementioned morning markets and up the city’s central avenue of Lane Xang.  Perched in the middle of Lane Xang a few hundred meters from Talat Sao is the Patouxai, Laos’ equivalent of the Arc de Triomphe and another demonstration of the close ties between Laos and France.  The view from the top of the Patouxai was quite a sight, we were able to take in all of central Vientiane down to the Mekong and across the river to the beginning of Thailand.  Our tour also took us past Wat Sisaket, the oldest wat in Laos (constructed in 1818) and the only one to survive the Siamese sacking of the country in the mid-nineteenth century.  Further on we walked past the Presidential Palace on Setthathilat Road and took in the small art and antiquities collection in adjacent Haw Pha Kaew.

We found a great way to spend the late afternoon in Vientiane was to walk down to the banks of the Mekong River and enjoy a few drinks at one of the plethora of food stalls that establish themselves in the dirt.  Beers are $USD1.00 each and the food is all prepared on the spot, some great value traditional Laos eats.  There were a few eye-raising dishes on offer, such as the BBQ or fried frogs available at the stall pictured here (the frogs in the blue bucket were live and would be skinned should someone order a frog dish!).  The sunset was brilliant on the night I had the camera with me, a very picturesque spot…

We were originally contemplating heading further south in Laos to Pakse and then to the 4000 islands of the delta of Si Phan Don.  However, given that we’re not overly keen on a day-and-a-half bus trip through southern Laos to Pakse as well as the fact that Pakse’s airport is closed for maintenance until November, Vientiane will be our last stop in the country.  It’s been an eye-opening albeit quick journey, the wats and monks strolling the streets a constant reminder of the religious roots of the country.  The inhabitants of the rural areas of Laos live in some quite squalid conditions yet the people all maintain an extremely friendly and, when compared to neighboring Vietnam, refreshingly laid-back attitude toward life.  We’re both so thankful we decided to make the side-trip into this small, land-locked Southeast Asian nation!

Street View: N18°55.282′ E102°26.792′

The bus trip from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng was an amazing journey through the mountains of northern Laos, taking us up to elevations above 4300 feet a number of times along the way.  It took us almost seven hours to travel a mere 300 kilometers, I doubt if there was more than a single kilometer during the first six hours of the trip without a hairpin bend on the single-lane road, but it gave us a chance to take in some of the brilliant mountainous jungle scenery.  (Unfortunately the windows of the bus didn’t open so I didn’t take any photos.)  We spent a couple of nights in the small village of Vang Vieng situated alongside the fast-moving Nam Xong River, stopping to break up the trip between Luang Prabang and Laos’ capital of Vientiane.  The jagged limestone mountains jutting almost vertically out of Vang Vieng’s surrounding rice paddies made for some beautiful surrounds and reminded us of the mountains in Kalambaka.  Unfortunately the influx of tourists to Vang Vieng has stripped the town of most of its traditional culture, the main street is littered with bars and restaurants playing reruns of Friends or Hollywood movies for the plethora of British backpackers that seem to be drawn to this tiny town in northern Laos.  If we were missing western food (which we’re not!) we’d have no problem finding anything from pizza to hamburgers and French fries at any one of the Vang Vieng eateries.  You can supposedly pay a little extra at some of the restaurants for a ‘happy meal’ which entails having marijuana, mushrooms or opium mixed into your dish!

We spent our day in Vang Vieng exploring one of the limestone caves for which the countryside around town is famous.  Thamchang Cave is located a couple of kilometers out of town across a footbridge over the Nam Xong River.  While not as grand as the massive limestone amphitheater we visited in Vietnam’s Halong Bay, the small opening of Thamchang welcomed us into some brilliant caverns that stretch back into the cliffs for hundreds of meters.  An opening in the cliff face provided us a fantastic bird’s eye view of Vang Vieng and the surrounding rice paddies.

Planet View: N19°53.695′ E102°08.399′

Street View: N19°53.695′ E102°08.399′

The plane from Hanoi to Luang Prabang was definitely decorated in the most colorful manner either of us has ever seen, take a look at the seat covers pictured here.  Laos is the only country I’ve ever visited where, if you don’t have enough cash for a visa upon arrival, you can waltz through immigration to the ATM outside the airport and then walk straight back through for the formal immigration procedures!  I take it they don’t have too many problems with illegal immigration in Laos…  We had a late night introduction to the tuk-tuk upon arrival in Luang Prabang, a tuk-tuk is a small truck converted to carry passengers in the rear tray, we jumped right in there with our bags for the few kilometers from the airport to our hotel.  Luang Prabang was a fantastic introduction to Laos, so laid back and relaxed compared to the hustle and bustle of Vietnam.  Luang Prabang existed as a tiny mountain kingdom for thousands of years, the whole town declared a World Heritage site in 1995.  Such a breath of fresh air after a couple of weeks in the often quite grubby places we visited in Vietnam, the Laos people obviously take pride in keeping their surrounds neat and tidy.  No more shopkeepers discarding their rubbish in the street gutters as well as a welcome respite from all the spitting, a practice of which the Vietnamese seem to be quite fond.  The laidback nature of the Laos people was clearly evident as we explored Luang Prabang, a break from being constantly hassled to buy anything and everything, the traffic even seemed to be orderly and Laos drivers aren’t struck with the Vietnamese’s obsession with using their horns.

Luang Prabang’s old town, where we spent most of our time, is located on a small peninsula between the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers.  The French-Indochinese architecture of most of the buildings is mixed with an array of red-roofed temples, or wats, dotted about town.  The intricacy of decorations on the temples’ exteriors was amazing.  With the surrounding jungle, monks walking about town in their bright orange robes, beautiful wats littered through town and the calligraphic script of the Laos language covering all the signs we had to remind ourselves that we weren’t in an Indiana Jones movie!  Luang Prabang’s old town has an extensive range of beautiful guesthouses available for tourists, from $USD15 a night for the budget traveler to multi-hundred dollar palatial residences.  Most of the guesthouses are constructed using the tropical hardwoods that abound in the surrounding jungle, the flooring, doors and interior roof of our guesthouse were beautiful varnished teak.  The old town also has a surprisingly extensive offering of cuisine, from French patisseries to Indian curry houses, all priced very reasonably by Western standards.  The national beer of Laos is called Beerlao and is usually served in gigantic 640mL longnecks for between $USD1.00 and $USD1.50.  Happy hour at one of the local bars, where Beerlao longnecks are buy-two-get-one-free, can be a little dangerous to say the least.  Most of the tour books we read recommended Luang Prabang as the place to experience Southeast Asian massage, we didn’t need much convincing and each had an hour of traditional Laos massage one afternoon when the monsoonal rains were keeping us indoors.  Traditional Laos massage doesn’t use oil but instead the masseuse concentrates on pressure points, muscle relaxation and extensive stretching to relax the subject.  We both enjoyed it very much, the masseuses put their entire body into the ordeal, utilizing their feet, hands, elbows and knees to stretch and twist us in every which way.

Something we both wanted to experience during our travels through Southeast Asia was riding elephants.  A great deal of the elephants in Laos have traditionally been used for wood harvesting, but due to the mechanizations of harvesting as well as the reduction in harvestable area due to conservation efforts a lot of elephants are finding themselves without jobs.  We found an elephant village, as they’re called, just outside Luang Prabang where six elephants live to provide tourists rides through the dense Laos jungle.  They actually live quite comfortably with a full-time veterinarian on the premises and access to the waters of the Nam Khan River just below their jungle home.  It was an amazing experience, we spent an hour walking through the jungle on top of the huge animals, toward the end we both even had the chance to steer our steed from atop her head.  Our elephant was named Mai San and was a 60 year old female and had quite a fancy for bananas.  At the culmination of our walk through the jungle we were allowed to feed our steeds by hand with bunches of banana, their massive tongues coming out to latch on to what’s obviously one of their favorite foods.

A nightly Luang Prabang event that we unfortunately didn’t discover until our third night in town is the night market, a dizzying array of traditional Laos food and local handicrafts lined up along the old town’s main street.  A heaped plate of food from the food stalls cost 5000K (around $USD0.60), more than enough to fill us up for dinner and so very tasty.  We also did some souvenir shopping at the plethora of handicraft stalls, the bed and pillow covers made in the surrounding villages were too hard to resist (I’m now carrying Lisa’s backpack because it’s so full of souvenirs!).