Our van leaves at 9:30 a.m. It's full of locals, there's overbooking. So we get approached by another agency on a motorcycle with our backpacks on.
Vang Vieng
There's plenty of room and the van is much better, they're all local too. She plays driver and she does it much better than the previous driver, we have four hours of travel ahead of us. We get stopped by the military and the driver has to pay for the bite.
Street food
We continue the march and in two hours we are in Vientian. We are dropped off at the bus station and take a tuk tuk to our accommodation, Mixay Guest House. Excellent, with many rooms and enough staff, all very clean.
Views from Mixay
We eat and take a tuk tuk that takes us to Pha That Luang, the golden stupa. It's the most important monument in Laos. It consists of a huge golden stupa and several wats. Highly recommended.
Pha That Luang
Pha That Luang
We visit Wat Si Saket, Wat Phra Kaew and Patuxai or the triumphal arch of Vientiane in a huge avenue of several lanes. The Laotians call it the Lao Champs Elysees.
Patuxai
We walk to the embassy area, Vientiane is a small city, clean and quiet does not look like an Asian capital. Near an old stupa there is a bookstore where we bought a Lonely guide to pirate Cambodia for $8.
Stupa
We see a Khmer style temple but we don't go in it is already closed. However we enter another one behind our hostel with a lot of color and lights, the monks are sitting down.
Playing petang
Stupas
We walk along the Mekong River until the sun goes down. We have a barbecue dinner of chicken and glutinous rice near the river. Very good.
Near Mekong river
We don't find information to visit elephants in freedom in Ban Na or to get to Tham Kong Lo (a cave of 7 kilometers of navigable length when the phreatic level allows it), it is rainy season and nobody assures anything. Finally we found information for Tham Kong Lo, but they do not recommend it to us because of the rains, only the agency Green Discovery dares but charges a lot of money.
We go to sleep, tomorrow we will decide.
Breakfast: 45,000 LAK 2 pax.
Bus from Vang Vieng to Vientian: 120.000 LAK 2 pax
Food: 75,000 LAK 2 pax.
Tuk tuk: 70,000 LAK.
Accommodation: Mixay Guest House 110.000 LAK with double room with bathroom.
Dinner: 35.000 LAK 2 pax.
- Log in to post comments
