Like a flight I'd taken in India, my flight to Vientiene had the flavour of a local bus as we stopped in Phnom Penh before continuing on to Vientene. It was odd transiting in Cambodia seeing all the shops and souvenirs I had left behind the previous month. But another short flight and DIY mystery meat rolls as the inflight meal, we landed. I shared a stupidly expensive taxi from the airport with a random fellow passenger. Checking into a somewhat malodorous room I hit the streets. Its very different from the south with lots more bars and westernish restaurants. Vientiene is famous for its sunset bars next to the Mekong which they are currently mining for sand apparently. What a mess - if I want sand in my beer I'll go to the beach. I easily knocked over the sights in my 2 days there. I saw a couple of wat/museums. At one of them I bought an informative booklet describing what the different positions of the budda statues mean - really I want to know these things! I saw and climbed their equivelant of the Arch de Triomphe which according to the sign is
less impressive close up. I can't disagree, it is an ugly conctrete monolith. I then hiked to the big gold stupa which is right next to the 1960's concrete National Assembly building (do you see a theme emerging here?). I must admit I did spend on afternoon in my hotel (I found and moved to a much nicer one on day 2) reading a bo
ok in the AC. So finished with Vientiene it was on the bus and off to Vang Vieng to see if the rumours are true.
Like a flight I'd taken in India, my flight to Vientiene had the flavour of a local bus as we stopped in Phnom Penh before continuing on to Vientene. It was odd transiting in Cambodia seeing all the shops and souvenirs I had left behind the previous month. But another short flight and DIY mystery meat rolls as the inflight meal, we landed. I shared a stupidly expensive taxi from the airport with a random fellow passenger. Checking into a somewhat malodorous room I hit the streets. Its very different from the south with lots more bars and westernish restaurants. Vientiene is famous for its sunset bars next to the Mekong which they are currently mining for sand apparently. What a mess - if I want sand in my beer I'll go to the beach. I easily knocked over the sights in my 2 days there. I saw a couple of wat/museums. At one of them I bought an informative booklet describing what the different positions of the budda statues mean - really I want to know these things! I saw and climbed their equivelant of the Arch de Triomphe which according to the sign is less impressive close up. I can't disagree, it is an ugly conctrete monolith. I then hiked to the big gold stupa which is right next to the 1960's concrete National Assembly building (do you see a theme emerging here?). I must admit I did spend on afternoon in my hotel (I found and moved to a much nicer one on day 2) reading a bo
ok in the AC. So finished with Vientiene it was on the bus and off to Vang Vieng to see if the rumours are true. 
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