Vientiane - last day in Laos

Arc de Triomphe in the Laotian capital, Vientaine

We left Vang Vieng both feeling quite ill - me with a migraine, Jemma with terrible back ache. We took a minivan down south to the capital of Vientaine. It took 4 hours and we had the world's worst driver. He drove like a madman at break neck speeds around the winding country bends which started to make us feel really sick. We had one travel sickness tablet left over from Thailand, so we decided to chop it in half and take half each. Such is the potency of Thai travel sickness tablets, it zonked us both out and we slept most of the way. When we arrived in the capital, we were both so tired we could barely stand up. I had an excruciating migraine caused from twisting my back in the wrong position for too long. Jemma somehow managed to navigate us to our hotel and when we got there we collapsed into bed and slept for a few hours. When we woke up, we decided to try and get tea and see a bit of the city before we left Laos the next day. Jemma felt really ill and shaky, so we went to the nearest cafe and then it started to bucket down.

Monsoon

 We sat there for a bit, ate, and then went back to the hotel for another lie down. Later on, we got up and walked around the city, hitting all of the major sights. There's not much to see in Vientiane apart from an Arch-de Triomphe- like- building and a couple of French looking buildings. A lot of the roads have French names and the city was very developed compared to the rest of Laos. After our city tour, we looked around for a restaurant for tea but couldn't find much, so ended up in a Western steak house which cost us a bomb (well, £5 each, but that's a lot in Asia) and they undercooked our steaks (in fact I don't know if they even cooked them at all?) they were red raw and we had to leave them. Must be something to do with the French influence. By the end of the day, I was ready to leave Laos. I feel like we missed a trick in Laos and didn't really go to the right places. The countryside is so amazing and it is so untouched but we didn't get chance to venture into it much because we were in a rush to get to Vietnam because of our Visas. Laos is a friendly country, and has a lot of similarities to Thailand, but is much less developed and I would like to return there one day before it turns into one giant Vang Vieng.

One of many French steet signs

Laos photos: Album