Vientiane, Laos

At this stage, we have been roughing it for a while. The bus ride and the tuk tuk drama finally ended and we are in the guesthouse that we booked. We get there at 8am and wait for our rooms for 2 hours sitting in their lobby area too tired to go explore anything or do anything at all. When we finally get our rooms,the room is super simple, 4 beds and a bathroom and that's it. The worse bit though the beds are hard as cement - not even sure if there is a mattress on there! In the state that we are, the cement bed is welcoming and all of us crash.

Cement beds

A combination of being tired, grumpy, the heat and humidity make sure we don't do anything during the day. Chang sis and Kim go to get massages as I laze round and do nothing.

In the evening, we go for a walk around the Vientiane waterfront and watch a spectacular sunset over the Mekong river.

Sunset over the Mekong river

Dinner is grilled fish and some stir fry vegetables but it doesn't compare to the one in the Luang Prabang market. We take another walk around Vientiane riverfront and crash early.

Day 2 in Vientiane starts off slow as well.  We are tired, the heat doesn't help (it is 32degrees, feels like 40.6degrees and 58% humidity) and our mattress in this guesthouse is like sleeping on a cement slab. To top it off, we all have bad mosquito bites.

We manage to muster all it takes and get a tuk tuk to the Buddha park (as recommended by a French lady we met on our travels). The temple is not bad, it is an interesting combination of Hinduism and Buddhism. The original statues are deities from hinduism but a large reclining Buddha has been built inside and is worshiped. The Buddha park however is around an hour away and closer to the Thailand border, so getting there and back in the tuk tuk wears us out.

Buddha park

We are wrecked after that visit (we are not coping well with the heat here) so it is nap time again. We have a dinner in a French patisserie in the parallel road. After dinner, Chang sis and I venture out a bit to see Vientiane at night. The city lacks the vibrance of Luang Prabang and does not have a lot to do for tourists at night. We walk along LanhXang Ave to see the Patuxuay or victory gate of Vientiane.

Patuxuay

It is a momument resembling the Arc de triomphe built in the 1960s. However from a closer distance, it is far from being impressive - it has not been maintained and lost its origin appeal.