Last stop Vientiane

---

The trip down to Vientiane was another saengthaw but we didn’t break the record for the number of people in it this time.

Vientiane is a funny city - it is the capital but it didn’t seem at all together and there didn’t seem to be a particular centre, it was all broken pavements, open sewers and road works and there would be one bar on the road, another restaurant on the next street - no atmosphere I thought.

I wasn’t there for long but did the Lonely Planet walking tour on the first day where I went to see the Laos version of the arc de triomphe (sp?) which had a very funny plaque describing itself as a monster! There are lots of temples and I also went to the morning market which was a covered market and sold absolutely everything - the food section was always interesting!

Day two I got a local bus out to Buddha Park - this man liked Hinduism and Buddhism so he built loads of sculptures from the two religions and put them together in this field - it was quite surreal and I had a chat with another monk who was taking a break from his revision! I had a bit of a wonder around and then headed back to the city to see the most famous Wat in Laos - it is the one on the front of the Laos Lonely Plant guide book and it certainly was very impressive because it is so big and so gold! I think the guidebook describes it as looking like a cluster of missiles!

I didn’t have long on that day because I had to catch a bus to Danang in Vietnam - one that I was not looking forward to.

---