Jill & George's trip: Vientiane, the most laid back capital city on earth!

Having managed to pull ourselves away from Don Det, a place where you might intend to stay a few days but could easily end up there for weeks, we were back on the VIP bus the relatively short journey north to Pakse. Our intention was to spend some time here getting to know the area, sorting out a few things, do a trip out to the plateau, take advantage of hot showers again and catch up on some sleep away from the cockerels and pigs before the next action. Our plans quickly changed. As soon as we arrived in the town we realised that we would want to be leaving pretty shortly, and with no working ATM’s and only just enough money to cover accomodation and the sleeper bus on to Vientiane our hand was forced and so after only 24 hours we were on the move again.

The sleeper bus was amazing. It was lit up like Regent Street at Christmas with flashing red lights declaring it to be ‘KING OF BUS.’ Because we got the back row of beds I was able to hang my legs in the aisle without disturbance while Jill fit snugly into the the rest of the space. Even the Korean man that spooned me for most of the journey couldn’t put a dampener on things. We got into Vientiane in the early morning light and got a Sawngthaew, (a motorbike with a decorated trailer on the back which has two rows of seats down either side which face inwards, and is the Loas version of a bus), into the centre and grabbed some breakfast. The first thing that hit us was that it was very relaxed and not a great deal seemed to be going on, for a capital city it seemed quite subdued. But this was what we quickly realised we liked about the place. It did have things to see and places to go to, great places to eat and drink but it wasn’t about to hijack a bus full of fresh faced tourists to tell them.

We spent our 2 days in Vientiane walking and cycling around trying to unearth some of it’s hidden treats. It is a city that seems to have a Wat on every block all with orange clad monks milling about in and around them. We visited the symbol of Laos, Pha That Luang and the huge market which sells anything and everything including a rather cheap looking PC which had been decorated with various apple logos, “You want cheap Mac?” I think I’ll pass thanks all the same.

So far the Laos people like the Cambodians are a nation that make me smile, and I look forward to meeting more on our journey further north.