Vientiane, the capital of Laos, and the final stop on my Thailand & Laos adventure. We arrived here late in the evening, after catching a flight from
Luang Prabang (the roads were flooded, and we had to skip Vang Vieng). This actually meant we got an extra day here, due to our schedule change, which worked in my favour, as I was only going to have one day here originally, though other members of the group were going to end up staying for four or five days now. My initial perception of Vientiane was that it was going to be another large Asian city, not unlike Bangkok or Ho Chi Minh City. And in some ways it was; big, busy, lots of traffic, a little generic at times. But in other ways, I preferred it to some of those other places, as it wasn't quite as big, and it felt like there was a lot of character, especially in all the riverfront restaurants, and some of the sights we visited. It wasn't my favourite stop of the trip, but I did enjoy it more than I was perhaps expecting to. On that first evening, it was pretty late by the time we got to the hotel, but most of us still went out for dinner after we'd checked in. We were staying near the Nam Phou fountain, which is beautiful when lit up with coloured lights at night, and has several bars and restaurants nearby, and the one we went to was pretty cool, with colourful lanterns out the front, and a live band playing inside.
