Mr & Mrs Wanderlust : Vientiane...the peaceful capital

Travel
We took the night bus from Pakse to Vientiane costing 150,000 each. It was the WORST night bus we have taken during all of our travels. The beds were very uncomfortable - they were double so you would have to share with a stranger if you weren't travelling as a pair. On top of that they are only about 5ft long and the air con on ours was broken.
Needless to say we arrived in Vientiane at 6.30am feeling rather worse for ware. We took a tuktuk from the bus station to the central area where all of the guesthouses are. It cost us 40,000.

Accommodation
We ended up staying in Dream Home Hostel 1, it was 50,000 each in an 8 bed dorm but it included a good breakfast, the room had AC and there was a pool over the road we could use.

Day 1

The first day was really a write off. After finding a budget street breakfast and sitting around in the hostel until we could check in we napped in the cool room. In the evening we headed to the night market which was impressive and runs every night. There was a good mix of clothing and the usual market tat along with a good selection of food stalls.

Day 2

We woke up early and headed out to try and see as much as we could in one day. We started with the president palace and large temple complex, but were disappointed to see that the temple was closed due to refurbishment and the palace is not open to the public. We took a few snaps and moved on walking past a large brick stupa called That Dam, before arriving at the Patuxua (concrete arch) its actually quite nice and set a nice open space in gardens right in the centre of town. Its a shame that some kind of red banner had been attached to it affecting its look. We climbed to the top costing 3000 LKP each. The views weren't particularly spectacular. But we enjoyed it all the same. After this we walked on the the famous gold stupa temple complex. There were a selection of new looking temples housing a variety of Buddha statues. One with a large reclining Buddha outside.The gold stupa (Pha That Luang) is clearly older but very pretty and clearly very much respected and important for the Laos Buddhists in Vientiane. You pay 5000 to get in. The ticket stated it was a museum....but there was nothing resembling a museum inside. Just the stupa and Buddha statues. From here we took the long walk across town to the Cope Centre. This is a great place to go. We found it an incredibly interesting and informative place and it is free (although its a very worthy cause in need of donations). Cope provides orthotic/prosthetic devices and rehabilitation to individuals with disabilities especialy those affected by the UXO's (unexploded bombs - from the Indochina war). We learnt that Laos is the most heavily bombed country per capita in history and many of these bombs were left unexploded and are still being found / hurting people today. The centre is well laid out, we spent about an hour and a half there, but could've stayed longer reading more articles or watching the different documentaries on offer. After our long day we popped by the night market for food on the way back to the hostel before crashing! We were up early the next day for our 9am bus to Vang Vieng!