Vientiane (Wen Chan) meaning moon along river

Trip Start Aug 30, 2007

Trip End Sep 30, 2008

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Flag of Lao Peoples Dem Rep Vientiane, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Thursday, September 20, 2007

Our first experience of this city was being ripped off by the tuk-tuk driver who took us round the block from the drop-off to a guesthouse from the guidebook. Not a good start. It got worse! We spent the best part of the next 2 hours trying to find a place to stay that wasn't full/dirty/too expensive/full of mozzies...we ended up having to pay more than normal for a hotel which was clean...loads of places were strangely full, even though there were very few tourists around as far as we could see.

The up side is we found a lovely cafe round the corner called Full Moon: tasty Pad Thai noodles, banana smoothies, happy hour, french fries, Lao specials. We started to relax!

We were craving Thailand by now but decided to stay another night as the hotel was nice and included free Internet and breakfast which were rarities

Stupa @ Vientianne

. Friday we explored...dropped off some laundry first to be done that day for 50pence at one of the many laundry houses...then walked around the town...not really a city. Went to the Lao Museum which was probably the worst curated museum we'd ever seen. Little funding put in by the dowdy way it's presented. Some interesting artifacts but jumbled history relating to French and American take-overs with a bit of Communism thrown in and lots about Dutch explorers! The N E Laos Plain of Jars area sounded interesting: hundreds of years ago people were buried in these jars along with beads and fabrics. More recently, there are unexploded mines and cluster bombs (USA)there which is sad as Laos seems such a peaceful place, compared to surrounding countries.

Meanwhile the Presidential Palace was very well funded from where we were standing outside.
We retreated to Joma bakery for a coffee which is full of expats...where do they all come from and what do they do here? We hardly saw any foreigners beyond this place and the Full Moon cafe! In the afternoon we took a tuk-tuk 3 km out to That Luang, the Laos national symbol...big gold stupa inside a walled garden...and absolutely no one around...quite a sight from afar.
Well, Vientiane didn't really make an impression on us...and there are more homeless people here which makes us sad. Saturday, we head to the bus station for the 'Friendship' bus over the border to Nong Khai in Thailand.

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