Vientiane- Happy Christmas!!

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We arrived in Vientiane following a 12hr night bus journey and the first thing i noticed was that there were mosquitos everywhere... not a great start.

Things deteriorated when we realised that the accomodation in the capital is quite expensive but, thankfully, after one night in a decent hotel we managed to find a cheap crappy one that suited our budget!

Vientiane is not particularly nice and is probably my least favourite destination so far (excluding Mumbai- which I am working on forgetting!), which is a shame since the rest of Laos has been so great. It was also a shame considering we would be stuck here awaiting our Vietnamese visas for the next few days. The city itself seems quite new and lacks character and, is a bit seedy once night falls.
(Read: drunken prostitutes speeding around the city on scooters all night long!)

Also, our hotel was infested with bed bugs (but at $4 for a double we stayed put!) and we heard reports that many others were also. We were all eaten alive.

We visited the Buddha Park that lies about 25kms away though and that was really cool, so all was not lost. It was a small park filled with loads of huge and unusual stone sculptures of various hindu and buddhist Gods, with a large reclining Buddha. It was a nice bus ride out to the park, through a few small, suburban villages along the Mekong.

We also visited the Laos version of the Arc de Triomph, (that was built using money the US government donated for the construction of a new airport in the 60's!!).

Christmas arrived and we found a restaurant that was serving traditional Christmas roasts. We decorated our hotel room with banners and balloons and bought some cheese and crackers (very difficult to find!) and snacks for Christmas morning. Sarah managed to find a bag of salt & vinegar crisps for me as my xmas gift, so I was delighted! We spent the day sweating from the ridiculous heat and drinking Baileys to remind us of home and although it didn't compare to a proper, normal Christmas, it was nice to have marked the day in some way. We also watched Home Alone in a local pub, which gave us the necessary dose of "ancient, feel-good family tv that we've already seen a million times"!!

Our Vietnamese visas eventually arrived and we made our arrangements to move on before New Years. We decided to take a bus from Vientiane to Hanoi and may well live to regret it! It is an arduous 28hr bus journey on what the Lonely Planet has dubbed the "death bus"........

So farewell Laos, for now, next stop: Hanoi- Vietnam!

Hopefully.

Fingers crossed.

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