Vientaine: Paris for people who can't afford it

For the journey to Vientaine (pronounced Wieng Chan) I wore travel bands, took motion sickness pills, and then ended up sleeping the entire way anyway. We arrived around 5pm and for the first time since we've been away  it was really tricky to find a room. The first five places we tried were all full, or out of our price range. Eventually we paid a tuk tuk driver an exorbitant amount to take us to one about 1km out of the centre, which had a pretty garden and a vacant room. We went to a little French restaurant called Le Cote D'Azur for dinner, one of the many atmospheric French bistros in the centre of Vientaine. The food was excellent, equal if not superior to some of the best meals I've had in posh restaurants in Glasgow. We splashed out and spent a total of 11 pounds (no pound sign on this keyboard!) on the meal, including a glass of wine and a large beer Lao. Dave had home-made salmon ravioli in a creamy sauce, and I had unidentified white fish in a garlic, lemon and butter sauce, served with chips, vegetables and an artichoke and spinach pate. The other customers in the restaurant were all French, which was also the case in our guesthouse strangely enough.

 The following day we hunted down the Joma bakery in Vientaine and found out the quiche there is just as good a sin Luang Prabang. Dave, still not an egg lover, conceded it was nice, but had something bizarre called a taco salad instead. We then spent a couple of hours wandering the streets of Vientaine, checking out something picturesque wats and the central fountain Nam Phu, above. The city is filled with French and Italina bistros and expensive cafes, as well as a large supermarket filled with gourmet Western food, wih prices the same as Peckhams. Next we headed to the National Museum, which contains some dinosaur bones and lots of interesting photos from the various revolutionary struggles in Laos in the latter half of the twentieth century. This is definitely history written from a Lao perspective, as the captions on the photos of the American imperialists indicate. A few more English translations of some of the exhibits would have been good, as well as a bit more introduction and context before some of the rooms.  We headed to the central swimming pool next, pictured below at sunset. It was a relaxing place to spend the afternoon, and was also right next to the bowling alley, where Dave persuaded me to go afterwards. I'll draw a veil over my absymal bowling ability and move on to dinner....

 We returned to the Swedish bakery, a pizza place we first found in Luang Prabang, and shared a pizza before going for a drink at a rooftop bar called Bor Pen Nyang, overlooking the Mekong. After sleeping in on Monday morning and then visiting the internet cafe, bank and post office, we returned to yet another branch of the Swedish bakery for a sandwich platter - fresh bread, salad, cheese and ham.

Afterwards we set off on a 4km walk to a couple of Vientaine's major tourist attractions. Firstly was the Patouxi, Vientaine's replica of the Arc de Triomphe, built to commemorate the Laos people who died in the revolutionary wars. It's smaller than the French version and set in an attractive park surrounded by fountains. From there we headed to Pha That Luang, pictured above, a national monument and religious symbol. We arrived just before sunset, which meant that we saw it at its most romantic but couldn't enter the actual monument - although it is perhaps better admired from outside. 

 We visited the night market for dinner and bought fried rice, stir fried vegetables, spicy sausage and a spinach and mint curry. Most locals buy this food to takeaway home in the plastic bags provided, so we had to use a shared stolen fork to eat it, also pictured above. We returned to the rooftop bar afterwards for a margarita and a beer lao, and made the impulsive decision to head south to a famous cave, on a bus at 7am the following morning, which would mean leaving our guesthouse at about 6am. The plan was doomed to failure from the start - details on where we actually ended up to come!