Kenny has raved about Vientiane and Lao in general for the last year since his last visit, so I expected a lot! And while it wasn't exactly what I'd pictured, it's been even better!

We took an overnight sleeper bus from Pakse, and arrived early Monday morning. Kenny was shocked at how busy the city was. Generally, it's quite sleepy, even though it's the capital. We walked around to about 5 different guesthouses and hotels, but all seemed to be incredibly expensive, about $10-15 a night, too much for us, then we finally found one that met our standards: fan, balcony, private bath with hot water, and even a TV with some English channels. One thing we're missing though, that we've had in the last few places are bugs, thank God!

After putting our bags down, we walked around the city center. We stumbled upon a wine cellar, and had a private wine tasting for the two of us. This may be the highlight for me of the entire city! We each had a glass of Chardonnay and a Bordeaux. The Bordeaux blew the Chardonnay out of the water. Along with that, we got cheese, meat, warm bread, and peanuts. It was amazing, and we relaxed there for at least an hour and a half.

On Tuesday, we rented bikes for just 10,000 kip and rode around the city. The city center was a bit hard to ride around because of the large "End of the Monsoon Festival" going on. Once we got out of town, we got to see the Paxtuai Monument, which is made of US-gifted concrete that should have been used for an airport. However, they modeled it after the arch de Triomph. It's an easy climb to the top, and we could see the entire city.

We also biked out to the National Monument, a gold covered stupa. We didn't go in, because there wasn't much to see past the ticket booth, according to the other travelers. But it was very pretty and got some great pictures in that area.

Our plan for today is to eat as much French food as we can, because we can't get this quality French food anywhere in the world for the prices here. I'm loving the bread and the cheese. There's tons of cafes, so we might have a hard time deciding where to go!

Soon, we'll be flying back down to KL for our last night in the airport. We're hoping they don't bug bomb us there for the third time, that would make it so miserable! Then, we'll be in Sri Lanka for 9 days. Elephants, leopards, beaches, and ancient ruins, here we come!