Day 167 – Vientiane
Exploring the capital
Today was our one and only full day in Vientiane, which is that capital of Laos. Vientiane is very close to the boarder with Thailand. We were thinking about checking out the Buddha Park (Xieng Khuan), but that would have taken the entire day and not let us explore anything else. Instead we decided to stay within the city and walk around.
Our first stop on the walking tour of Vientiane was close by to Wat Sisaket. Wat Phra Kaew (Hophakaew Museum on Google Maps), is an impressive temple that looks magnificent. It was only now as I do this post, that I see it wasn’t an actual temple. A 10,000 LAK / $1.64 AUD entrance fee applies per person. After seeing this temple/museum, we decided to skip Wat Sisaket, and continue on our journey.
We posted some postcards before walking to the COPE Visitor Centre. This small exhibition is dedicated to educating about the many cluster bombs that are unexploded all over Laos. They have a mission to ban the cluster bomb, as apparently 30% of the tiny bombs do not detonate in test conditions. This equates to 80,000,000 unexploded bombs after the war!!!!!!!!!!!!
We then walked to the Patuxay Monument, which was inspired by the French Arc de Triomphe. Built in 1962, the monument was never fully finished, and the information at the monument calls it a “monster of concrete”. In my opinion it looks nice. The surrounding park is a very cool place where families were chilling. Due to Chinese New Year, there were additional monuments made from China (the material).
Peace Gong
After some much deserved ice creams, we headed back to the night market near the Mekong River for some souvenir shopping. As we left, we also were approached by a tuk tuk driver. We actually asked if he could come to our hotel in the morning to perform an airport run. We took his mobile number and hoped for the best. If he didn’t arrive, it will be super difficult to find another way there in the morning. Fingers crossed. Oh and we agreed on the price as 50,000 LAK / $8.18 AUD which is great!