It is the capital city of Laos, but has the look of a quiet, almost forgotten provincial town. Our previous stop at Luang Prabang was in the ancient Royal capital, and it is bigger, has more impressive buildings, more tourists and seemed much more prosperous.
We walked over 18 kilometres in total, and saw all of the top sights. Unfortunately, I found the back entrance to the Presidential Palace instead of the front, and then went to visit the temple on the wrong side of the road by mistake. However, we corrected those errors and Daz then started to get a bit more involved with the map reading.
My favourite place was the Arc de Triomphe of Vientiane and it was apparently made from cement that the Americans sent over to extend the local airport runway. It might also be known as the Vertical Runway, but I may have made that up.
We then walked quite a long way to see a golden temple and sleeping bhudda that was Daz's highlight. We did also buy coconut ice cream there that came with rice, jelly, peanuts and evaporated milk, so that might have helped sway it for him.
We visited the fountains at Namphou Park which TripAdvisor said were a bit rubbish, although we did find a nice place to stop for a cappuccino.
I also liked this elephant outside of a temple that was just being built. His trunk is not finished yet although he already looked very happy with his new home.
It was a good day, and please note that these are the edited highlights, there is more to the city than I have included!
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