Vientiane, capital of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic and a sleepy little riverside town. We got here after a rather eventful ride from Vang Vieng. We had decided to go on the local bus at 12:30, only to find that there was no bus (or so they said). The information we were given was the the bus had broken down 45 kilometres short of Vang Vieng, but we suspected this was an excuse for not running a bus with only a few passengers. After prevaricating for a while, we decided to go in a saengthaew – a semi-covered pick-up truck. Not the most comfortable of rides for four hours, but an experience.

We were promised that there would only be the six of us and two or three Laotians. Their number swelled to seven or eight at times and after only a few kilometres we stopped to take on what seemed to be literally half a ton of cucumbers.
Rather top heavy we continued the twisting journey towards Vientiane. The wooden benches had some sort of padding, but it was hardly a comfortable ride

. About twenty minutes short of the capital, it started raining, and the “semi” part of the trucks cover became apparent. the bags we had managed to keep out of the seating area were now rescued from their exposed position to be placed between us, causing the already cramped conditions to feel even tighter.
Still a few kilometres short of the city centre, we came to a halt at the bus station. As it was still pouring down, the truck was heading for cover, but our load of cucucmbers meant that we couldn’t fit under the roof. A solution was found when we reversed in and we could get out without getting wet(ter).
Accommodation ranged from the too expensive to the rather gloomy

. We settled on the latter and got ourselves some windowless rooms in the only place that could take us all.
An excellent dinner was had (as in Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng) at Nazim, and Indian restaurant so good it felt, tasted, smelled and sounded like we were (back) in India. Once again, the rain discouraged further venturing out into Vientiane’s somewhat lacklustre night life, and we ended up back at the hotel.