We had an interesting check-in for our domestic flight south to Vientiane, including being asked to make ourselves familiar with the signs of what can and can't be taken onto the flights, one of which said it was ok to take your hand gun, this was of course providing it was in the "checked in" luggage. After some of the things we had heard about Laos Airlines we were thankful for a smooth and uneventful flight.

Vientiane was much warmer than Luang Prabang and with its proximity to Thailand, which is directly over the Mekong River, it is much more liberal than the conservative north. At night a fair few lady boys adorn the river front and ladies of the night the side streets. There a loads of European style cafes too and the odd British and Irish pubs about, though for a capital city it is remarkably quiet, little traffic and pedestrians. However, last night we passed a night concert that was blaring out the loudest highest pitch music I have ever heard, my ear drums still haven't fully recovered. Must be getting old.

As we only have a couple of day here we hired a tuk tuk for the day from a friendly young guy and he took us to see some of the sites. We headed to slightly bizarre Buddha Park, which is about 24km from the city. It is full of different cement sculptures, including giant Buddhas, elephants, something that resembled a giant tomato with a tree on top, and various warriors and demons. Built in 1958 it is classic meets modern art, some of us liked it (me and Jules included) and others not so, but then we are refined art lovers (!). On our way to and from we passed the Freedom bridge between Laos and Thailand, sounds nicer than it looks, before heading to the Beerlao brewery, which is good beer for this part of the world, for a quick tour and taste test of the nectar we have been consuming over the past week. It wasn't much of a tour but the tastings were good. Enough said.

We stopped at a few Wats/temples, the most interesting of which was probably Phang That Luang, a giant golden spike built in the 16th century on the ruins of an earlier temple. It is the national symbol of Laos and worth a look. Equally is the Victory Monument built in 1969 to honour the Lao who had died in pre-revolutionary wars, it looks a bit like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and the view from the top of the flat city around and the Mekong River in the distance was great. Ironically it was built with cement donated by the US for a new runway at the airport.

In the evening we had a superb meal at Makphet restaurant, which is run not-for-profit by former street kids and their teachers. They serve modern Laos food in a quirky, trendy restaurant and the brochure come menu details, in addition to their tasty bites, how their operation works.

The following day we headed north east towards the Vietnam border and stayed in a small village, Hin Boun, with a local family. This was a home stay where we got to take a B52 longboat up the river to their settlement and explore their basic village and learn about how they live. The scenery was much more Vietnamese, or should I say reminiscent of viewing this part of the world through the eyes of Hollywood. Lots of dense jungle cloaking steep mountain faces with strange spiky rock formations, valleys with long sweeping brown rivers and a mist that hovers all around. We had bought some presents for the kids, crayons and books, as well as a football. We had a game with some of the children, who weren't bad players. 

Later that night after some excellent local food, we had a couple of beers and spoke with a couple of locals, everyone else seemed to have gone home to sleep. Our small tour group of 8 was then split in two with half staying in one house and half in another. The night was very muggy and very loud on account of the party that seemed to be taking place underneath the stilts of the house that we stayed in. May be they waited for us to go to sleep before getting the good stuff out and going for it. Despite sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor and getting little sleep the whole experience was interesting, though much different to the one we had in Peru, which was far more intimate and perhaps a little less manufactured.