Vientiane: May 1st-2nd

This was the first capital city where we didn’t need to spend more than two days to be satisfied! Exhausted from our ride from Vang Vien, we spent only a few hours out enjoying dinner in Chinatown and walking along the river. Dinner was a hit but overly priced in our opinion. We enjoyed baked pork balls with lettuce and thinly slices of raw beef cooked in coconut juice.

The next day we rented cycles and visited the most important National monument in Laos, the golden Pha That Luang. Vientiane isn’t really a large city so we covered most of it by bike in a matter of hours. For dinner, we ate at one of the many outdoor ‘restaurant’ stalls along the Mekong River. Along with our large Beer Lao, we enjoyed ping paa, a large fresh tilapia that was rubbed with sea salt and stuffed with lemon grass then grilled over charcoal. The fish was so moist and fresh and the lemongrass was a wonderful touch. Sadly, that meal was the best part of Vientiane in our opinion. We weren’t really impressed with the overly priced goods and services offered and the people weren’t as friendly as we were told by others.

We took an overnight bus down south to Paske, a small town outside of the large Bolaven Plateau.