A 4 hour private bus journey to the capital of Lao, Vientaine passing at first through mountainous terrain with the occasional village mostly made of traditional wood houses on stilts and a few water throwers. Once we were back down on the Mekong plane,the villages became towns and the road surface not much better though until we arrived in a he urban sprawl of Vientaine. It is the smallest of the S E Asian capitals and the old city is easily walkable. However we needed a tuktuk to take us the two must sees in the city. The first is the so called Victory arch,a sort of arc de triumphe,built with concrete donated by the USA and intended for an airport and therefore called the vertical runway by the locals but officially Patuxai. It was never truly finished and is crumbling away. A great view of the city from the top and inside a host of souvenir shops. The second must see is a mile or so away along a fine wide boulevard is Pha That Luang, a golden stupa and the national symbol. As we were visiting so we're hundreds of locals busy sprinkling all the Buddhas with water. This was the only time we were safe from people with buckets as on our way to and from our hotel we were sitting ducks in an open Tuktuk and got soaked yet again.
As we rested up before going out to dinner we could hear the street parties continuing unabated and motor cycles revving up .We walked cautiously back to the main restaurant area and ate outside on an upstairs terrace looking down on the watery mayhem below. As we finished our meal and paid with a credit card(first time in S E Asia) at about 9pm it seemed to quieten down. we think everyone was too tired and drunk to continue. we strolled to the night market and haggled for a t shirt but they too were closing down but a good 2 hours earlier than normal. At 11pm it just stopped and we enjoyed a restful night before our flight to Vietnam tomorrow.