Sabaidee

It's that time of the day and a new blog update. The good news is that the bed here is much better than in Vang Vieng although the bad news is that we have a noisy team of builders hammering away outside our window and snooking up flem (a local sport in Laos!!!!) then spitting it out like a frogs chorus!!!!!

Our day started as every other over breakfast and planning what we were going to do for the day. Unfortunately the first jobs that we had to tackle involved finding a train to take us from Nong Khai in Thailand back to Bangkok on Saturday. It proved a little difficult as again they seemed fully booked but we did manage to find two 2nd class sleeper bunks in different carriages. Luckily we managed to also get booked into the same guest house in Thailand.

Vientiane is a compact city and we decided to walk today and our first stop after a steady 20 minute walk was the Patuxai Arch, it's like the Laos version of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. It was built in 1969 to commemorate all the Lao people that lost their lives pre revolution. It wasn't tall but as you could climb it we couldn't resist going up to see what the views were like. At the top we had a water break before taking in the vistas, it is dissected by the main avenue of Lane Xang which runs right through the middle and shoots off through town, you can also see various temples from up there as well.

We then scurried along to Talao Sat market for a look around, this place was like Aladdins cave and sold everything you can imagine but also seemed to be a world of shrink wrap as nearly every product was covered in the stuff!!!

After a nice steady lunch in a cafe by the Namphou Fountain enjoying the shade and chatting with a guy who we did the cookery course with back in Chiang Mai it was back to the room for a freshen up before heading out this evening. We are going to check out the area down by the river as there is a restaurant that is on a boat somewhere close by we think.

Will be in touch

Lots of Love

M & M