Vientiane

This is the capital of Laos, but it really shouldn't be! There is not much here but then none of Laos towns have much going on.
We had to stop here to go onto to Vang Ving, we arrived very early in the morning on our double bed coach to the worst flooding I have personally ever witnessed, but slowly we got to the bus station and after what felt like the longest time picking up other people on a tuk tuk we drove to the city centre. There is no online booking for any Vientiane hotels so we hadn't bothered to book anywhere we just got the guy to drop us off near the river, but when we dropped off a couple who refused to pay what the driver had quoted them and things started to get a bit heated we decided to get off here and find somewhere. Turned out we where only 1 street from the river and in the best backpacker area, so we went to the only open café and sat for some coffee and the obligatory omelette and French bread, I sat with Napoleon and Pedro while Herman went to find us somewhere to stay. (Instructions: clean, cheap and hot water!) An hour later we where in our little room which was clean, cheap and had hot water!
As neither of us had got much sleep on the so called sleeper bus we had an hour snooze and a shower and went for a walk to see what we should see.
There are some incredible beautiful Wat's with the most incredible colours we had a chat with a very elderly monk he was very nice and spoke fluent English.
The French colonial history is alive and strong here, there are plenty of French style bakery's – shame we found it quite expensive here.
We did some shopping we where looking for some flip flops as Herman was pissed and fell and broke his!! We must have gone to every shop there and he couldn't find any he liked! There are lots of shops selling fake stuff as real at the most outrageous prices – of course we've seen the fake stuff we've bought lots on our travels already but nobody lies and they don't normally try and charge you the real price.
There is also a lot of drug dealers here and every second person asks you if you want some good coke and you see all the normally American kids on holiday making there way either to or from Vang Ving and they are so high or on such a downer they cannot move. There is also a lot of lady boy prostitutes here, I hate to repeat myself but after hearing that story of them beating up men who laughed when I see them I have to look down, not because I think it is wrong no each to there own but I suffer from stupidity that means I will laugh when I tell myself not too!