Thavonsouk Resort Hotel Vientiane

... concourse, aside from being a long street. On reaching the top, we were greeted by the sight of Patouxai, modelled on the Arc de Triomphe. It resembled it to some extent, sort of like a smaller Buddhist reworking of the original. We paid a small entrance fee then climbed to the top, from where we got a 360 degree view of the city, which was alright but not hugely inspiring. After taking some pictures, we decided to head back, as it was ...

... to go, after passing Laos' version of the Arch de Triumph about a mile or so to the big central golden Wat. The beautiful sky and the gold covered Wat made quite an impression on us. We walked around the premises, enriched by the culture and then left to cycle some more around Vientiane. <br>We headed down to the water front passing the impressive presidential palace and found ourselves surrounded! The entire Mekong River strip was covered with an old fashioned fair to ...

... mistake and that they should come to Hanoi to check. They had no real choice but to do this. I checked the main hold and managed to find my bag so I was relieved. <br><br>From there we carried on north, going through areas which had been devestated by the Typhoon which had struck just 3 days previous. Fields were flooded and we saw a number of houses blown over. It's clear a lot of clean up work would be needed. The further north we headed though, the better the weather was ...

We awoke at the ungodly hour of 7am and caught a tuk-tuk to the bus station in Savanakhet, where the 6-7 hour bus ride to Vientiane would commence. The journey was long and slow, and seemed all the slower for the style of passenger acquisition the local bus driver employed. The first hour was spent crawling along the main road out of town, where locals were waiting every hundred metres or so in bamboo shelters to flag the bus down, ask the driver a question, and ...

... hate de vous les montrer.<br> Retour au bercail, donc. Nous croyons a la pause cafe...mais les elephants ont chaud, nous disent les amis Mahouts. Nous reprenons donc nos selles et puis nous digigeons vers la riviere. La pente est mons abrupte que celle que voulait nous faire prendre Mae Cot ce matin...mais tout de meme. La, j&lt;ai peur de passer par dessus sa tete et de me retrouver pendue a sa trompe !! Cest pas super sable, un cou d&lt;elephant ! Mais l&lt;acces a la ...

... out of town (we only rented two...I rode on the back. I did try to ride it around the parking lot but I was way too scared!) The goal was to go to Xieng Khuan Buddha Park, which is 27 km outside of the city. It is this huge park with Buddhist and Hindu sculptures. It was built in 1958 by Luang Pu Bunleua Slilat, a yogi-priest-shaman who merged Hindu and Buddhist philosphy, mythology, and iconography together. There are huge statues of Shive, Vishnu, Arjuna, and Buddha that were cast ...

What a journey! Sanne and I booked an overnight bus from Pakse to Vientiane as its 10 hours and hopped on board to find.....double beds!!!! Well, actually its more like a single with a dividing line down the middle! Gotta be a joke right? But no! Thank god we booked together - I really did not fancy the idea of sharing that with some random dribbling weirdo (which is what I ALWAYS end up sitting next to!). Luckily the bus wasnt full so managed to ...

... contemplating travelling through North-East Laos to the Vietnamese border, but decided it would be a long way back if we couldn't get visas sorted en route.... so we decided to get the local bus back to Luang Prabang.... what a journey:<br>- it took 10 hours instead of 8 (they'd had rain since we travelled up so there were landslides and pot-holes everywhere.... plus they obviously stopped at every village to pick up/drop off people/stuff<br>- it's a bumpy, windy journey... and ...

... Lao version of the Champs Elysees (which is actually a copy of the Unter Den Linden Strasse in Berlin) and Potouxai is the Loa Arc de Triomphe . It is roughly modeled after the French one, though instead of there is a lot of Buddhist symbolism. The Arc was never finished because of Loas' turbulent history, though you are able to get a good sense of it. Everything in the town closes at 4pm so after visiting the Arc, we just walked around ...

... mua hàng theo tem phi&#7871;u m&#7845;y ch&#7909;c n&#259;m tr&#432;&#7899;c? &#272;&#7909;ng &#273;&#7871;n &#8220;yêu n&#432;&#7899;c&#8221; thì còn ai dám nói gì h&#417;n n&#7919;a, nó v&#297; &#273;&#7841;i, thiêng liêng l&#7855;m. &#272;&#7871;n nh&#432; ng&#432;&#7901;i Tàu trung c&#7893;, r&#7891;i Kh&#417;-me &#273;&#7887; ch&#7843; s&#7861;n sàng chém gi&#7871;t anh em, hàng xóm &#273;&#7875; th&#7875; hi&#7879;n lòng &#8220;yêu n&#432;&#7899 ...