Vientiane & Vang Vieng

After our overnight bus trip we arrived in the capital of Laos, Vientiane. The french influence is more obvious here than down south, from the days when Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam were all part of "French Indochina". Many buildings have a french colonial style, French restaurants are common, and wine is more easily found than elsewhere in southeast asia (real wine, that is, not rice wine). The city even has its own version of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, set in a roundabout in the middle of a street sometimes optimistically called the "Champs Elysees of the east". A sign outside the monument is brutally honest, admitting it was only half finished due to funding problems and describing it as looking like a "monster of concrete" from up close.

Alongside this is the traditional Laos culture and architecture with temples scattered throughout the city. We've found that many of the traditional buildings are badly maintained, and the colonial style buildings that still look good are the ones that have been turned into hotels, restaurants, etc.

Disappointingly we had a hard time finding decent Lao food in Vientiane, with most eating places in the central distict catering to tourists. After a couple of tries we gave up and found that the western food is the best we've had for a long time. We almost went to a fancy French restaurant for $8 a main but decided at the last minute to have cocktails instead at our "usual" western style spot. The cocktails were normally $2.50 each but being happy hour we got 50% off and had a good night.

After a few days in Vientiane we kept going north to a town called Vang Vieng, which is renowned for its scenery amid sheer hills and nearby caves. A popular activity is floating down the river beneath the hills on old tyre tubes, which has overrun the town with backpackers. We signed up for a tour to see the caves and go tubing, and were surprised after about 50m on the river to stop at one of many very busy bars on the riverbank which were packed full of more tourists than we had seen people in town. The first bar had a rope swing over the river which Kristal had a go at (see the link to youtube from the blog page). One of the caves we saw was particularly interesting as a river runs through it and we had to pull ourselves through the cave on rubber tubes.

Apart from the scenery in Vang Vieng there was little reason to stick around so we kept heading north to Luang Prabang, the ancient royal capital of Laos. The bus trip was very windy, but scenic through 260km of steep hills and gorges. Luang Prabang is in the middle of northern Laos and we plan to use the city as a base to do loop trips in the far north and north east of the country.