Recently, we had to pop over to Vientiane, Laos for a business trip. Vientiane is the capital of Laos, home to about 800k people. You’d never guess after spending a week there. It feels more like a small town than the country’s largest city. We were there from Sunday to Friday, so we didn’t get to experience the weekend, and it’s shoulder season so our time was relatively sleepy. Since I was recovering from a 6.5 hour tattoo on my shin, I didn’t mind too much. Often we were the only white people where we went; a far cry from our times in other major SE Asian cities like Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Vientiane’s tourism industry is growing, but still has a long way to go to match the excesses and glitz of cities like KL, Bangkok and Singapore.
Food Tour, as is our custom
So Airbnb, our usual tour go-to, had literally zero experiences in Vientiane. Amber was resourceful and found a private tuk tuk food tour that wasn’t so much “sample everything that Laos is known for” but more “eat like and with the locals.” Let me tell you, the tuk tuks in Laos are pretty grungy compared to the souped up rides we have in Bangkok. Our tour tuk tuk was the best I saw, but we were still basically riding in the back of a homemade pickup truck scooter. Earlier in the week we rode in one that I swear did not go above 10 mph (see video at the end of this post.)
This tour was a lot of food; the host basically forced us to eat everything he saw while he ate none of it. These weren’t bites either, at one point he gave us an entire half of a chicken. The bulk of our dining happened at 2 night markets, 1 near the golden stupa and another somewhere random around town. We were the only white people at both. Best dish was probably the fresh coconut ice cream near the end of the night. You can see the look of amazement on Amber’s face below. Another highlights were the grilled rice cakes on skewers; the chili glaze was a nice touch. The dumplings were pretty good as well. After the ice cream, I wasn’t interested in any other food, though our guide still tried to get us to eat grilled eggplant, beer, and fried roti.
Sightseeing
Vientiane isn’t teeming with sights to see like a typical city of this size. To put an American comparison in play, it felt like a Cleveland or Columbus. We managed to see most everything in town in a single day. Granted we did walk like 8 miles, but we got most everything in.
Pha That Luang
The main attraction in Vientiane is Pha That Luang. Oddly enough, it’s in a square where cars can basically drive right up to it. The gold covered stupa is surrounded by temples with a night market nearby. It was originally built in the THIRD century BC, but the most recent rebuild/renovation happened in the 1950s/60s after WWII. The night of the food tour we cruised by again on the tuk tuk before stopping off at the night market. We found the reclining buddha statue to be a bit more awe-inspiring than the stupa itself, but both were pretty great. Side note, they love green glitter paint at their temples. It’s hard to see in the pics, but anything green shimmered like a little girl’s birthday party.
Patuxai
Vientiane also has it’s own Arc de Triomphe called Patuxai. Of course, the Lao version has 4 sides instead of 2, a top, and you can climb the stairs to get panoramic views of the city. In other words, it’s better than the French one (note, I have never been to the French one.) Considering the history of France in Laos, I’m not surprised they decided to make a cooler version celebrating Lao independence from France. The fountain out front does musical shows at certain times; Amber was certain we stopped by at night when one was going on!
Wat Si Saket
Less impressive but still worth calling out, is Wat Si Saket, home to 2000 buddhas that fill the walls of the courtyard around the main temple (I think they call this a cloister.) While most of these statues were basically the same, it’s a looooot of buddhas. Unfortunately no pics of the main temple since they were prohibited. There are pics of Amber sitting in a watermelon chair though!!!!
That Dam (pronounced like tot dom)
The That Dam aka black stupa is said to be inhabited by a 7 headed naga. This thing cuts an interesting profile in the middle of the city, but oddly enough is located inside a roundabout. They also didn’t really keep up the park or cut the grass, but maybe we just caught it on a bad day. Anywhere that is home to a 7 headed snake I am all for checking out. Side note, Wikitravel has a bolded disclaimer saying that there are dog attacks here at night, hahahaha. We went during the day to ensure we were not accosted.
Other Food/Thoughts/Sights/Closing
Overall, a fairly low key week without our usual high intensity sightseeing. In some ways, that was disappointing. We’re used to seeing a ton of things every day. In other ways, it was nice…relaxing. Very little pressure to maximize our time. It’s rather likely we won’t be back again; there’s another place in Laos we want to see called Luang Prabang, but probably won’t be vacationing again in Vientiane. Aside from the tour we did eat at a few nice places. Somehow we found an Argentinian man running a nice Latin food restaurant and we also spent a few meals at a lovely outdoor cocktail bar. Here are a few random photos and a video of the fastest tuk tuk on earth to send you home.
