The Mekong once again acts as the border between Thailand and Laos and is very much its best feature. Unfortunately for us the main road with all the shops and restaurants was "under renovation" for the whole length of the city and was a complete quagmire. It rather spoiled the effect and made Vientiane seem like one enormous building site. There's not actually an awful lot to do, so in Vientiane so we hired a scooter and headed 25km out to Buddha Park, a fairly recent (50 years or so) park that was full of concrete Buddhas and other Hindu and Buddhist statues.
Not Laos at its best
Sadly the aforementioned road under construction went virtually the whole was there and so we were both covered head to foot with dust, but also had sore eyes (dust) and sore bums (bumpy road) so we felt the park had a lot to live up to.
Actually it was amazing and had some very imaginative sculptures doing crazy shit - it was reminiscent of a modern art gallery and well worth the visit. The journey back was long and arduous though and a Laos massage was definitely in order!!
Lazy Budda
Nothing else to do so we headed south on an overnight bus to Pakse and a big ancient monument: Wat Phu. Of course we got dropped off at the bus very late so had the last (worst) seats on the bus, right next to some Israeli guys we'd seen in Muong Noi - the traveller trail in Loas is very well established! Even the Valium was not enough for this bus ride and El (once again) vowed to pay $100 for the 1 hour flight next time and never ever ever ever take a night bus ever again. Times 2.
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