Vientiane

Well we are at the airport again! This time at KL waiting to board our flight to Vientiane in Laos. We got up about 8am and repacked our bags and headed out to get the train and bus back to the airport. Rudi is feeling better but still not great but has made it here with no dramas so far. He ate a few chicken nuggets and a banana but that’s about all he has had in the last 2 days. Ok so skip forward about 8 hourz and we are now in Laos. We got a taxi from the airport for a set price of about $6 which apparently is way over priced but we were happy to pay it. Checked into the hotel no problems and room is quite nice! India has made us appreciate the normally unappreciated! We went for a walk and probably did the most walking we have done all trip. We went to check out a traditional laos dance theatre we were going to get tickets for tonight but it is temporarily closed so we went down the road for a beer instead. For about $1 Rudi had a beer and for about $3 I had a tequila sunrise! We then stumbled, no we walked about 2km to Laos Arc De Triomphe! It was made from some concrete that the Americans gave to Laos to build an airport. Instead they built this monument and it is known as the ‘vertical runway’ It is very much like Paris with a long road (no expensive shops , mostly hotels) lights all down the street and the Arch in the middle of a roundabout. It was too late so we didn’t get to walk up to the top and enjoy the view but we walked around and it was lit up and the sky from the sunset was absolutely amazing. We didn’t stay as long as we would have liked because there were mosquitoes swarming us! We walked back towards the hotel and stopped at a restaurant Rudi had chosen out of the lonely Planet guide for dinner. He was hungry for the first time in 2 days! I enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine for the first time in almost 6 weeks and they were poured just to my liking…right to the brim! Rudi had a couple of soft drinks and we ordered some chicken spring rolls for an entrée. The plate came out and I reckon there was about 12 or more of them on the plate….almost enough for dinner! We had already ordered a main each as well so we ended up with a lot of food left at the end but for all that it was about $20. It is crazy the prices! We came back to the hotel passed market like stalls all lining the street and booked our bus for tomorrow to Vang Vieng. So off to bed now and see how we go getting up earlyish so we can do some more sight seeing before we leave tomorrow.