Vientiane

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Vientiane is the sleepy laid back capital of Laos. It's a tiny town not really worth the moniker of "city" but quite easy going and full of travellers. It is certainly part of what the Lonely Planet guidebooks calls the "Banana Pancake Trail".

I walked everywhere as usual, and ended up walking around 15 km in total to see the usual sights such as Vientiane 's imitation of the Parisian Arc-de-Triumph fused to an Asian style ... they call it the Patuxai, Pha That Luang, which is a golden coloured Wat featured on all official Lao memorabilia including the Royal Seal, stamps, Postcards, etc., and walked along the Mekong River watching the locals and the monks.

The sky was cloudy and rained now and again ... but, that's the price of travelling in the "off-season" eh.

I'd always wanted to see Vientiane and I'm glad that circumstances led me here, but it was a bit of a disappointment from the expectations I had built up. I had expected a more bustling cosmopolitan city ... not a sleepy backwater town. It's a nice town, but not in class with Hanoi or Saigon or Bangkok or KL or Singapore.

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Photos

Patuxai aka Vertical Runway
Built using cement donated for an airport runaway