Our last stretch from Sukhothai to Laos went suprisingly smoothly. We were prepared for yet another nightmare the sort we had when crossing from India to Nepal. Nothing like that materialized. Though we had to take a night bus and change twice, everything went smoothly and by early afternoon we arrived to the capital of Laos - Vientiane. We read that it is a very laid back place and indeed it is. It does not feel even like a capital - there are not too many cars on the streets and generally there is no rush whatsoever. The best thing though about the place is the French legacy - with it the possibility to eat baguettes and all sorts of nice cakes - I might not be a person that especially needs bread or sweets but after 4 months of basically not eating anything except rice and occassionally bad toasts, real bread tasted awesome. You do not even need to go to a fancy restaurant to buy it - it is sold everywhere on the streets. For me it is definitely the highlight of the place :)
Otherwise, the center of Vientiane can be criss-crossed within one hour by foot. It is really cosy in that sense. It is clean and with very few cars it has this unique communist feel - empty streets and from outside everything looking good. Anyway it is a very light version of communism as private enterprises are everywhere and doing well.
We have rented bicycles and went outside the center to look for additional adventures but honestly we have not found them. Somehow everything seems to work - we could even get information about buses in English at a remote bus station...
One other very nice thing about the Vientiane is the stretch of "restaurants" that are being set up every evening along Mekong. We had some local specialties there but failed to order (to Rita's despair) a soup which you cook on your own table in a little clay pot. We will still try though.
As to the phenomena of white guys having local girlfriends - it seems that it is as big as in Thailand. Honestly, it is amazing as it seems that half of the guys coming here end up with local girls. Somehow it does not work the other way round...
Our next stop is in a middle of nowhere - no road leads there and you need to take a 3 hour local boat to get there :)
Our last stretch from Sukhothai to Laos went suprisingly smoothly. We were prepared for yet another nightmare the sort we had when crossing from India to Nepal. Nothing like that materialized. Though we had to take a night bus and change twice, everything went smoothly and by early afternoon we arrived to the capital of Laos - Vientiane. We read that it is a very laid back place and indeed it is. It does not feel even like a capital - there are not too many cars on the streets and generally there is no rush whatsoever. The best thing though about the place is the French legacy - with it the possibility to eat baguettes and all sorts of nice cakes - I might not be a person that especially needs bread or sweets but after 4 months of basically not eating anything except rice and occassionally bad toasts, real bread tasted awesome. You do not even need to go to a fancy restaurant to buy it - it is sold everywhere on the streets. For me it is definitely the highlight of the place :)
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