vientiene

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vientiene is a beautiful city on the banks of the mekong river. its been a while since i was there so im having trouble remembering exactly what i did! laos is such a chilled out place where you just wander aimlessly that nothing major springs to mind!

the first evening we went for a walk along the river and watched the sunset. im going to change my photo on this site to the one taken there. its a bit more authentic than one in my bedroom i think.then we went for a group meal at a riverside bbq vendor. i know people say not to eat the street food but i think thats a bit of a myth because i personally have had some of the nicest food ive ever eaten from street stalls and its unbelievably cheap. one of the guys did get food poisoning from some ribs at this place but i think as long as you steer clear of meat you'll be fine. we went to a roof terrace bar for a cocktail then back to the hotel before curfew time hit.

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the next day im slightly ashamed to say we went to a swimming pool in a posh hotel and spent the day lounging about getting brown (ie burning my back so i now have the best bikini strap tan line youve ever seen) and then we decided we really ought to do something vaguely cultural so we went to the big old wat (temple) which was lovely and peaceful and then walked over to the arc de triomphe in the centre of the city.

the french had a large influence on the architecture of vientiene and they built a smaller version of the arc de triomphe to house runaways in laos during the vietnam war. the funny thing about it is that they seem a bit embarrassed by the whole thing and the sign stuck onto the side of it says something about how its even less impressive when you view it up close and some might say it looks like a monster of conrete. big up your arc de triomphe vientiene?!

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the city itself is fairly unremarkable and somewhere that you would probably stay for a couple of days and relax but nothing more than that really. it does have a cracking scandinavian bakery though. and they do cheese baguettes which made it all worthwhile.