28th March, a different generic internet cafe, Vientiane, Laos

We've just enjoyed dinner at some place by the river called something like "Sunset View Hut". Food was probably the best we've had in the city. Beer was the same. And it was the most grubby place you could probably imagine. Kids running around, dogs running around, no tourists with the runs though. At least not immediately. Most of the places we've been to eat so far have been restaurant-type places, but the food was unremarkable. This had real flavour for once. I love the smell of salmonella in the morning....


Otherwise, today we took in the main town stupa, or monument from the 16th Century. This was pretty impressive in scale, and gilded so would look amazing in the setting sun, but we saw it early afternoon so it had less of an impact. It was still pretty good, though the temples we saw yesterday were more interesting. We followed this by lunch at a place called the Full Moon Cafe. It used to be bad, but it's alright now-ooooo (sorry, it's emblem is a howling wolf)! It was a quite nice place, and air conditioned, so a good place to get away from the hot season sun. The interesting thing about it was that its main clientelle was apparently expats, rather than tourists. Mainly ladies-who-lunch by appearances, maybe off to knock back gin and abuse their domestic staff after a meal in town. Following this we went to the National Museum (formerly the Museum of the Revolution). This had some interesting stuff about Lao culture and the various peoples who make up the general populace, and a lot about the struggle of the locals against the French, then the Americans, the latter largely operating covertly. Not that I was brainwashed, but damn those imperialistic dogs for oppressing our Lao comrades. Still, they accept US$ as easy as their own currency, so hey hey, off back to Thailand tomorrow.