It was a long journey from Bangkok to Nong Khai on the Thai border. The 12 hour journey ended up being 15 hours but thankfully it was in the main comfortable.
As we passed through immigration the Thai officer stated that we had overstayed, we were sure we hadn't, but he was adamant. So was this a fine, imprisonment or both? He sucked his teeth and shook his head. We thought we were in deep trouble. It turned out he thought it was 18th when in fact it was 15th. And relax.
We hooked up with some others and shared a taxi to the centre of town. Jan and I were the last of the group to get through the Laos immigration post and so luckily for us, the haggling for the fare had already been done. As we drove into town, the Mekong river came into view. Before seeing it, it had conjured up so many images of small fishing villages, bamboo rafts and slow boats to China and here it was in front of us, wide, slow moving and glorious. We quickly reached our hotel, dropped our bags and went back out.
New country, new language and new money. We became millionaires today and with that million Kip (£80) in our pockets,the wad of notes was a lot thinner than you might imagine, Vientiane was our oyster. We realised quickly that working out the exchange rate was going to be fun. Paying 50,000 of anything for something is always going to feel expensive.
Vientiane had the feel of a Thai city that's on holiday. There are plenty of wats, monuments and food stalls, but the pace of life has dropped, the locals are unhurried and relaxed and even the mighty Mekong river flows at the speed of poured syrup.
The town is a labyrinth of side streets and cut throughs and most have a greedy share of hotels, hostels and tour agents. There's a quiet cafe culture too, not as sophisticated (to be read as "snooty") as Europe but definitely affording an hour or two of escapism from the Asian way of life if you should feel the need.
We walked a few kilometres along the raised riverbank, smiling at and saying "sabaidee" to the locals who love a good stare, but whose reciprocal smiles were bright and full and have a twinge of embarrassment to them that is so endearing. They too come out from their houses or shops to watch the sun setting over the horizon.
The elderly did slow and purposeful stretches while the children played on bikes and were chased by friendly dogs until one or the other got fed up and moved on to somewhere else.
After dark, the town descends on the daily night market. We walked through quickly while on the hunt for a decent bite to eat. Good food can be found in abundance here, though much of it is from western style restaurants as opposed to the grimy cafés we'd come to love in Thailand. Our hunger was satisfied by some laab and rice for me and veggies in oyster sauce for Jan.
On our first full day in Laos, the sun was shining and all felt good with the world. The roads were heaving with cars and they drive on the left so a little extra caution is taken while we get used to it.
Within 5 minutes of walking we stumbled upon our first Laotian Wat,
Hosantinimit. The monks were eating lunch in the shade of the eaves and we didn't want to disturb them. So from a reasonable distance we wandered round the complex. There were numerous smaller temples and effigies of Buddhist and Hindu gods, each made with such attention to detail, one even had fluttering eyelashes.
Back en route and within another two minutes of walking we find the Patuxai arch or L'Arc de Triomphe (perhaps ironically named as it's in memorial of those who fought for liberation from France). From a distance, the impressive arch looms across a broad pedestrian area, the turrets at the top of the arch distract from the fact that the structure is essentially a cuboid block of concrete. Up close we could see that the structure was never finished, this was due to the country's troubled past, something that just hasn't crossed our minds since arriving.
We climbed to the top of stairs, passed the two floors of tourist souvenir stalls, to reach the view point. There wasn't a huge amount to see, a few wats in the distance, a number of toy-town looking governmental buildings a little closer, but it was lovely being up in the fresh air and we never miss an opportunity for a Japanese style photo stop.
We finally reached Pha That Luang and "wow!" A medium sized temple complex with a huge gold covered temple at its centre.
We walked around a couple of the surrounding wats that in any other location would have been the star of the show. The giant reclining Buddha had us gawping at its graceful form and yet our eye was always drawn back to the huge central gold spire of Pha That Luang.
Around the perimeter of the huge golden temple, the ruins of dozens of Buddha statues and stone carved Buddhist teachings line the route. And again in any museum, these would fascinate and create such wonder for a casual observer, but in this setting we barely gave them a cursory look.
That evening we took a proper walk around the night market. It's the same types of thing for sale, clothes, bags and electrical goods, but the quality seems better and the prices much cheaper. I needed some replacement t-shirts the stall owner said I could have two for 40,000 Kip, it just sounded like such a big number, I said no and offered 35,000, she refused and we left. Jan then pointed out that 40k would have equated to £3.60 and I was too embarrassed to go back for them. I left the market empty handed.
We loved our time in Vientiane, the French influence on the architecture and food (baguettes are sold on every street corner), the easy pace of life and the wonderful people have been a great introduction to Laos not to mention the BeerLao, BeerLao is good, it's light, always served ice cold and just perfect to sip while watching the world go by.
It is everything we could have hoped for and so much more, it's these rewards that we cherish and will remember, hopefully for the rest of our lives.
Unfortunately, we lost one of our cameras. Not sure if it was lost in Thailand or Laos, but we have lost a huge amount of photos of Thailand and the videos of us playing with the elephants in Chiang Mai and our diving adventures in Koh Tao all very upsetting really.
But onward we must go and the party town of Vang Vieng beckons just a 4 hour bus journey away.