An early 5am start saw us wandering the dark and deserted streets of Hanoi (which was VERY bizarre to see compared to the usual mayhem!) attempting to find one of those 'cheaper than the hotel can provide for sure!' taxi's that we needed, but for some reason none were out! We finally found one 30 mins later and guess what, it ended up being way more expensive than the hotel one so for once we learned our lesson! It was a cool drive though as we passed the local market which at 5.30am was already rammed full of Vietnamese selling all their goods, flowers, and vegetables even in the pitch black! At the airport saw the last 'PHO' soup (Zach this time, we couldn't bear it by now!) being consumed then the valium 3 boarded the plane for our exit from Vietnam onto destination 4, LAOS - Vientiane!



50 minutes later and we arrived to HEAT! Perfect, it was so nice to finally thaw out from Vietnam and was very welcome to say the least! Obtaining visa's was interesting, Zach in true ozzie laid back fashion had not really planned this part so didn't have enough money and what he did was in the wrong currency!, then an old rather upper class English group started complaining (in one of those 'non typical' posh British accents) about the fact that the French paid 5 dollars less than the British.....at that point we cringed about being British and a sudden attempt at an ozzie accent was born!

 

Finally Zach was allowed into the country and we caught a taxi to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. The contrast on leaving the airport totally hit us, no beeping of horns, very clean, chilled and laid back and about 10% of the population of Vietnam! On arriving at the capital we couldn't quite believe that this was a capital city! There were hardly any cars or locals, the whole place was like a sleepy rural town, not hectic at all......we could see instantly why people had said they fell in love with Laos and I could definitely see that we were going to too, the quietness was bliss! I suppose a population of 5.6 million in all of Laos had something to do with it!

 

The usual 'no rooms at the inn' saw us ending up in a pretty dull and expensive 25 dollar room, vast contrast to previous prices! We then wandered down to the Mekong, passing loads of old cars which were cool plus the typical tuk-tuk! Here they really went to town though, jazzing them up in different colours and spray paint, just mad! We sat on plastic chairs by the river edge and sat down to attempt our first order for lunch, it was still unbelievably quiet and the sleepy Mekong looked beautiful, at this point the thought of spending the rest of the year in Laos was very inviting - especially as we had just seen on the menu that the beer was 50 pence for a large bottle! They say Beer Lao is the cheapest in the world......sorted!




Feeling quite drunk from only 2 beers (must have been the early start!) I dragged the boys along the river and around the Palace, Wats and Royal Temples - Haw Pha Kaew then over the road to Wat Si Saket, built by the king in 1824 where 3000 Buddha's in gold were placed in the walls! On route to the next historical monument, we passed the local shopping mall just in time to see some very dodgy singing contest and lady boy winner........at this point coffee's were needed.

 





Finally we ended up at Patuxai, Lao's own 'Arc de Triomphe' replica which commemorates those in Laos who died in pre-revolutionary wars, and bizarrely was built with cement donated by the USA (to be used supposedly for construction of a new airport!!) It was very impressive to say the least and I sat watching locals chilling and sitting round the fountains whilst the boys climbed the Arc! No cars under this one though!


On route back, we randomly passed a local football stadium and decided to have a look in..... This ended up with us then sitting with the locals having another Beer Laos in a very empty stadium watching the army vs Capital! I think us being there amused the locals who on us leaving did not seem too impressed as the army were winning!
 

That eve we wandered along the many cool bamboo style restaurants on the river and ended up having Mexican! Was very nice though and such a chilled out atmosphere! We then decided to visit the bar which in the Lonely Planet is described as 'the place for picking people up', perfect so we thought for single Zach! However it mainly consisted of local Laos women trying to pick up western men in a pretty seedy environment, the only good thing was the view outside and the rather large 'beer towers' you could buy! We didn't stay long......

 

The next day, Ads and I caught a very expensive (6 dollars to go up the road!) tuk-tuk to Pha That Luang - most important national gold monument and symbol of Buddhist religion/Laos sovereignty in the country. It was pretty amazing and had a 45m high stupa!



On route back we passed the dodgiest of taxi's welded together but still falling apart at the seams, saw more old cars and passed the tiniest of children clinging onto parents on the back of mopeds, unreal! That afternoon we then decided to leave the capital and head north to Vang Vien, our first impressions of Laos though were pretty good to say the least!