Vientiane

I was to be staying four nights here, as I applied for my Thailand 60 day visa on Friday morning, and needed to wait until Monday morning to collect it. Although there were a couple of trips on offer for the surrounding area, such as seeing a Buddha Park around one hour away, I wanted to take the opportunity to relax before I left for Thailand. And so I spent my time either with my friends at the hostel or wandering around the city on foot.

After applying for my visa on Friday morning I decided to walk the 5km back to the hostel to enable me to take in more of the city, and also to save me the nearly $5 tuk tuk expense. On my way back I passed the Patuxai (Victory Gate), which is Vientiane’s version of the Arc de Triomphe. It was impressive in height with detailed sculpting on the architecture and unlike The Arc, it had four archways rather than two. This was about all the sight seeing I accomplished that day, though as far as I could tell there wasn’t much more to see.

I was surprised how quickly I seemed to pass through the main area of the city. It was definitely the smallest capital city I have ever come across, and in typical Laos fashion there was a very laid back appeal. It did however reflect a capital city when it came to the price of goods!

That evening I headed to the night market with Janeth, Charlie and Jimmy (all of whom I had travelled with from Vang Vieng). This did not have the same charm about it as other markets, in particular Luang Prabang, that we had come across. It appeared to be much more focused on goods it would sell to locals, rather than the clothes and souvenirs favoured by tourists, though there were some of these stalls present. The main highlight for me was it’s location. Based on the riverside, which when stood on the promenade, gave you a view of both Thailand and Laos.

Janeth, Charlie and Jimmy all left the following day, but another of our friends, Eef (who had been ill the previous day), was staying one more night. Our day was spent mostly in relaxation, excepting our journey out to buy bus tickets, which saved me $10 by not purchasing them at the hostel!

As Eef had missed out the previous evening we took another walk to the night market, this time early enough to see the sun seeing over Thailand. We then went to a coffee shop were I ordered a lemon tea, expecting the warm herbal drink from home, and instead getting a cold lemon tea which felt so full of caffeine I couldn’t finish it!

Alone for my final day, I decided I should have one final effort sight seeing. Setting off several hours before I was able to pick up my visa, my plan was to walk around and view the main sights then go straight to the Thai Consulate. I wasn’t in the mood for museums, but I did pass through a pleasant park, see the President’s Palace and walked past some more temples. I could now leave feeling happy I had seen a large amount of the main sights in Vientiane!