Vietnamese Vientiane

Vientiane architecture


Patouxai — Vientiane’s Arc de Triomphe

Back to our visa run story, we took a night bus from Pattaya to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. I was really excited to go to Laos, even if just for a couple of days, I've only heard good things about Laos and their people.

Indeed, the Laotians are lovely good spirited people - though we find that's a pretty common theme in South-East Asia, so no surprise there.

What striked me the most in Laos is its uncanny resemblance with Vietnam. Same food stalls, same cityscape, same colours and general atmosphere. I wasn't too surprised to hear a few words of Vietnamese in the midst of the huge Talat Sao morning market.
Vientiane's air was purer and its streets wider, with actual side walks most of the time, which is more that I can say about Hanoi. But all in all, very similar feel.

We saw the Pha That Luang, the symbol of Laos; a gold-covered beautiful stupa:

Pha That Luang

In the morning I went to the Talat Sao market and even though there were some amazing bargains there, I didn't buy anything: we're poor right now.

In the evening, we had a few beers on the Mekong river with some of our visa-run friends, which was a memorable experience as Laos proved not as tame as Vietnam when it comes to people asking you if you want opium (never happened in two years in Vietnam) and girls asking you (well, Dan, not me) if you want boom boom. Again, if this happens in Vietnam and I've heard it does, it's a hell of a lot more discreet and hidden.

This said, the girls in question are ultra aware that the tourist population of Vientiane are full of people coming from Thailand to renew their visa. And Thailand tourists bring their reputation with them...

So, yes, Vientiane is quiet, relaxing, quite small for a capital city and hold many similarities to its Eastern neighbour Hanoi. Though come to think of it, nobody asked me why I didn't have a baby yet, so there's your difference with Vietnam.




The visa run itself was pretty gruesome: you have to queue for hours at the border, each way, but getting help from a visa run company was definitely a good idea: they organise everything for you and save you a lot of trouble. That we will do again, if we ever need to do this kind of visa run in the future.