On to Vientiane

Our late breakfast this morning was again muesli, yogurt and a mulberry shake at the Organic Cafe in Vang Vieng, then we caught up on emails and caught the bus south to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. It was a very hot day, and we piled into the minibus, packed full of travellers. We were just getting comfortable when the bus started back up, rounded the corner, and stopped at a hotel, where we were told to get out and board the big Greyhound bus. Why they bothered to pile us into the minibus to drive 30 feet will remain a mystery to us. We were much more comfortable on the big bus though, despite a bunch of other people whining that the airconditioning didn't work. We waited while a man fixed the aircon, all the windows were shut, then the bus was off. About 5 minutes down the road, the aircon conked out (no surprise to us), and everyone re-opened their windows. It was actually cooler with the wind flowing through the bus than with the airconditioning on.

It took about 3 hours to reach Vientiane, a beautiful winding road through more countryside and villages. We found a hotel, the Phone Paseuth, checked into our room, and went straight down to a river-front bar for some ice cold Beer Lao. Vientiane is a small capital city...in fact, it's rather tiny at less than 150,000 people. It's on the banks of the Mekong River (this river seems to be following us everywhere), across from which is Thailand. The 'pub' we chose was just a bunch of plastic tables set out in the dirt, but the beer was cheap and frosty, and there were more locals there than whities, something we always enjoy. Sitting there we were approached by a young guy doing a survey on the BeerLao label and image. Which was weird as we were just discussing a few days ago how the logo needs updating. A few beers later, we walked along the river and found a Tex-Mex place for a late dinner. It was more like Indian meets Chinese meets Mexican, but delicious all the same. We strolled back to our hotel near the Fountain Circle and headed for bed.