Welcome to our latest belated blog post. After the effort of getting to and from Sayaboury to see our friendly elephants we had a very lazy day in Luang Prabang doing not very much at all. Another day, another long bus journey heading south through the mountains to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. We paid slightly more to go on the 'VIP' tourist bus, which was actually relatively comfortable. It was not powerful enough for the hills though, making painfully slow progress up the curving mountain roads. This did give us time to enjoy the views though, which were amazing! Much of South East Asia has limestone as the underlying rock, and with years of erosion from rivers there are often dramatic, jagged spires of some of the harder rock that hasn't worn down. These are fairly abundant in Laos, and when covered with jungle make for impressive scenery. It is hard to see in the dark though, which we spent quite a long time driving through because our bus was 3 hours slow (meant to be 8 hours) so we arrived in Vientiane rather late. This was a bit risky because we hadn't booked anywhere, so we would have to take our chances.

The tuk tuk mafia price fixers are in full control at Vientiane bus station, over-charging at about 5 x a reasonable 'tourist' rate even, but you have no option so are forced to pay the fare. We got to go on a multi-seat tuk tuk with a large rear step, and as the driver was extra greedy there was no room for me to actually sit inside, so I got to hang on tight at the back as we bumped our way into Vientiane centre for a few kilometres. This is slightly risky (only slightly though as the tuk tuk was so slow!) but actually quite fun. We managed to find a half-decent room in a soul-less budget hotel after trying lots of guesthouses and then went to find some food.

The following day we woke to the sound of heavy rain and thunder. We found the hotel staff standing out on the street staring at the sky bemused by the wet weather which is unusual for the time of year. We took our time eating our breakfast because the first task for the day was to find an alternative hotel to stay in for the next two nights and neither of us could face the idea of trawling the streets in heavy rain. Luckily our delaying tactics paid off and we headed out in light rain. Eventually we found a reasonable cheap hotel and moved our stuff over. By now the rain had gone and the sun was back and so we decided to go for a walk through Vientiane to the Patuxai (literally meaning Victory gate). This monument has a close resemblance to that of the arc de triomphe. The USA provided Laos with concrete in order to build a runway however instead it was used to build this monument. Not surprisingly expats used to refer to it as the Laos vertical runway. Around the monument are well-kept gardens which are pleasant to walk around. It is also possible to walk up to the top of the monument providing great views over Vientiane in all directions.

After some lunch we decided to check out the local swimming pool which was actually very pleasant. It was clean, well chlorinated and had clean changing facilities with showers. We took a dip trying to avoid the wild swings of arms and legs of some of the locals who were trying to swim and then relaxed on some chairs for the rest of the afternoon.

For dinner that night Dave was keen to try a local delicacy known as larp. This consists of minced chicken, fresh herbs (mint, coriander etc), beansprouts, chilli and fish sauce. He found it very tasty but afterwards we were both slightly wary about the amount of fresh leaves in the meal but thankfully no bowel-related problems followed.

Our cheap hotel turned out to have amazing pillows and mattresses (something that we have struggled to find) and so after a comfy lie in we decided to head to Wat si saket. This is the oldest standing temple in Vientiane after all the others were destroyed by maurauding Siamese in the 1800s. This had some of the best and most preserved Buddha statues we have seen and both of us became very excited at the amazing photo opportunities. It was also a very peaceful place to wander around in and shelter from the sun despite the fact it is in the centre of the city.

After this we decided to head to the COPE rehabilitation centre. This is a charity that has been founded to provide support to people who have suffered injuries as a result of unexploded ordnance in Laos. It is estimated that 3-4 million cluster bombs were dropped over Laos in the 1960/70s and approximately 30% of these did not explode. As a result there continue to be accidents as people stand on them or pick them up and they explode. Another problem is that the price of scrap metal has soared and so many people are now going into the fields and jungles to find scraps of bombs which can boost there income by 3-4 times. There have also been incidents where women have placed their fires and pots unknowingly over an unexploded bomb and the heat warms the ground causing them to explode. The exhibit was small but extremely powerful and both of us felt moved by the stories and photos that we saw.

After lunch we really fancied a coffee but despite being a Monday every cafe we found was shut! Eventually we gave up on the idea of a nice coffee and tried to go shopping but were amazed at the prices that they wanted for simple souveniers (often more than we would consider paying in the UK)! The only thing to cheer us up was pizza. When we strolled into the restaurant we happened to find Deborah and Sven already there waiting for pizza and so we were able to join them and have a pleasant evening meal.

The next day we had to catch an afternoon flight to Hanoi in Vietnam. We spent the morning packing and catching up on the internet before taking a taxi to the airport. We had booked with Lao airlines which turned out to be much better than expected departing and arriving on time and even provided us with food.

Overall Vientiane is a good hub point in and out of Laos but far from the main attraction. It is fine to explore for one day but afer 2.5 days we were happy to move on to more exciting adventures.