Vientiane is the capital of Laos and it's the country's largest city. I spent a few days here on my way south towards Cambodia. Two months later I would return in order to get a new Vietnamese visa. On that visit, I stayed for about 2 weeks. Most tourists don't seem to like Vientiane very much, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. That's what I'm surprised that I only have 8 photos total from both trips.
The trip from Vang Vieng was a short one. It only took about 2 hours to get to Vientiane. I think many people in Vietnam would be surprised by this city. While I was in Vietnam, I stayed in lots of towns that barely showed up on Google maps and they were much larger than Vientiane. As the largest city in Laos, Vientiane is not a very large city at all. I'm pretty sure there are "villages" in Vietnam bigger than this city.
Vientiane has a few tourist areas and lots of buildings and temples that are worth seeing. What I really liked about this city was the restaurants. There was a great American style place that had Philly Cheesesteaks and other awesome dishes. The local food in Laos is good, and I especially like Chicken Lap, but I had been away from my home country for 9 years and finding some good American food in Vientiane was a real treat for me. The city also had some nice cafes and places to relax and people-watch.
There's also a night market that I enjoyed. I found a tourist shirt that I love and still wear to this day. It's a little hard to tell what the illustration is, but it's a tuktuk.
If you've read my previous posts in this series, you've seen me complain over and over about how tired I was of cities. I still am. So it's a little strange that Vientiane was one of my favorite places to stay in Laos. It wasn't my favorite place to see or ride through, but I really liked staying here.
I'm looking through my photos and there's a 3-day gap between my last Vientiane photo and the next one in Thakhek. I don't know what happened. Maybe the food made me feel at home and I don't take photos of home. Maybe I was tired from Vang Vieng. I don't know.
The place where I stayed had this sign in one of the hallways. It seemed to sum up the attitude of Laos, especially compared to Thailand. Laos is a lot slower than its neighbors. For me, it was a nice change of pace. In the cities of Thailand, I quickly got tired of all the touts and bar girls. In Laos, I was left alone for the most part.
Vientiane was a good city for me. I'm not sure if it should be on your list if you're limited with your time in the area. I can't really put my finger on why I liked it so much other than the food.
My next few posts are going to be a little bit tricky for me to make. When I left Vientiane, I went to Thakhek and spent about a week riding the Thakhek Loop. The problem is that I took a lot of photos of the journey, but not a lot of photos of the places that I spent the night in. We'll see how I work it out. I hope you'll join me as I start to explore Laos on a scooter!
