The 4 Star Hotel Experience

We got a flight from Chaing Mai to Udon Thani, and from there took a bus to the Friendship Bridge border with Laos.  Visa's are granted at the border which is convienent, costing us around $30. There was a sign posted saying something about gambling being illegal in Thailand, you risk your life and the Thai government won't help you. Did that say GAMBLING?? We turn to the left and theres a big neon sign "SLOT MACHINES"!!! That's like a sign from heaven for us haha , we wanted to drop our bags right there and run and and play a few machines!! But we sucked up all our willpower and got in a tuk tuk for a lift into the city.  After a long day, we didn't feel like being fussy on where to stay so we saw the first nice hotel and pick it. The Tai-Pan, probably about the most luxury you can get there! And at $70 a night, we had some high expectations! It was just alright though. Our room was big, a couch and chairs included and decorated in a 70's French style. 70 bucks could have bought us a weeks worth of accomdation here, just to give you a price comparison.  Ah well it was only 1 night.

70's style hotel room in Vientiene

We didn't do much here,since we arrived in the evening we just got some dinner, then had 1 beer in a bar and when a wierd English guy with a uncontrolable twitch tried to talk to us,we headed back to the hotel for bed.

some building in Vientiene

In the morning we set out to find these markets the guidebook talked about, after getting lost we finally found them, they are now in a mall like structure and it's the crappiest mall full of crap.  

We saw nothing of the city,but we didn't have much time.

As for the country, Laos is the most bombed country in the world. The US waged a secret war here, the American public was unware for quite sometime. I believe Laos was a neutral country,but the US was fighting the Vietnemise here and  they dropped $2 million worth of explosives everyday for 9 years. There still thousands of unexploded bombs around and people still die from them all the time. We were careful to stick main roads and pathways.

Street we were waiting for the bus on

I'd write more history but I don't have time so you'll just have to look it up yourselves!