We've been stuck in Vientiane for 4 nights, as the earliest flight we could get to Hanoi was on the 31st January. There's not a huge amount to do here so at first we were disappointed but we've not had a bad time for two main reasons: 1) the food here is delicious and 2) we have cable TV with HBO so there's been a good film on each night. In addition, the locals are lovely and there's a nice, relaxed vibe. It's certainly the calmest capital city we've visited!

The first thing we did after checking in the other day was hunt down some food. We found a place that did an amazing chicken kiev burger for Jak and a feta and spinach lasagne for me. We haven't seen food like that on a menu for a while so we were pretty happy. Generally the western style food out here consists of a lump of chicken/beef/pork and chips, or a plain beef burger and chips. Don't get me wrong, the local food is delicious and we do eat that as well but we've found that we can only handle rice/noodles half the time before we start waking up in the night with hunger pains! We're used to pasta and bread and potatoes dammit! Anyway, imagine our delight when we walked into a restaurant the next day to be greeted by more home comforts, and for the same thing to happen that evening - and for every single dish to be extremely well executed :-D!!! Over the last few days we have gorged on fish and chips, homemade pie with mushy peas, pumpkin soup with croutons, goats cheese burger with onion jam, bacon and béchamel croque and pesto pasta, to name just a few. The piece de resistance of piggery was today's visit to 'The Pizza Company' where we ate chicken fingers, garlic bread AND a deep pan pizza before skipping next door with our hearts singing to 'Swensens' where we both ordered ridiculously large ice cream sundaes. We staggered back to the hotel room feeling slightly queasy and slipped into what can best be described as a sugar-induced coma for the next few hours. In fact, eight hours have passed since then and neither of us are remotely hungry and neither of us have any energy. Perhaps we have been cured of our gluttonous desire for western food. I feel quite excited about having a curry actually, once I can manage it, so hopefully that's the case.

We have seen some of the local sights whilst we've been here. It's not all been pizza and films. The most interesting sight was the Victory Gate of Vientiane, a replica of the French Arc Du Triomphe. It looks like nothing else around it and an official plaque on the structure claims that is 'a monster of concrete'!! I think this is selling it a bit short. You can climb up inside it to the top to get great views of the city and there are some interesting Buddhist images and carvings along the way, which sets it apart from the Paris version. A man dressed in orange monk robes started talking to me at the top, asking me where I was from and telling me that he was 'a monk, as in monkey hahaha'. He then proceeded to take lots of photos with his flashy camera. This confused me as I though that monks weren't allowed fancy possessions like cameras or to talk to females! I could be wrong though, I'm hardly an expert.

We also visited Wat Si Saket, the oldest temple in Vientiane. It was the first temple we've paid to go into (2,000 kip locals, 5,000 kip for us) so we were a little disappointed to see that is in quite bad condition, with most of the murals inside faded beyond recognition. However its redeeming feature is that it has literally hundreds and thousands of tiny carved Buddha statues seated in alcoves lining the outer walls of the temple, and a couple of hundred larger statues positioned before them.

The other sight we visited that day was That Dam (literal translation: black stupa). According to Wikipedia this stone structure is believed to house a seven headed naga (snake) that tried to protect the Laotians against the armies of Siam in the early 19th century. It certainly looked old but unfortunately I didn't know the story about the naga when I was there so we passed by without paying it too much attention.

Yesterday we popped down to the Lao National Museum, which cost just 10,000 kip to enter, less than a pound. We got to touch an original jar from the Plain of Jars (a site in Laos inexplicably filled with thousands of stone jars from the Iron Age) and learned a lot about the history of the country, in particular how they have been pushed about and shat upon. Although the country is now at peace it was upsetting to hear that there are still so many injuries caused by the UXOs (unexploded ordnance bombs) all over Laos and that this will take decades to clear. Despite this and the fact that it is such a poor country, the Laotian people are the warmest, friendliest and smiliest people we have met on our travels so far. We will be sad to move on tomorrow.