When we arrived in Vientiane at 7am we decided it was time to treat ourselves to some luxury, so we splurged on a $40 per night hotel with AC and a pool! Heaven! It was a pretty slow day after the night on the sleeper bus, and we enjoyed a lazy lunch, swim and walk through the night markets beside the river. Vientiane is a pretty chilled capital, but we really liked it. Ben remembers it being much quieter, now with the markets and streets of restaurants and bars its very easy to spend a couple of days! Day 2 saw the return of some energy so we took a tuk-tuk to the Victory Monument, modeled on the Arc de Triomphe. The locals don't seem to be too fussed about it, calling it a 'concrete monster'
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