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We arrived in Vientiane (pronounced Vien-Chan) by Vietnam Airlines from Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). The Capital of Laos is a delightful, compact place – at least the traveller’s enclave in the centre is. Bougainvillea-blooming streets with French colonial mansions and an incredibly rich international kitchen surrounded by steaming noodle stalls and Buddhist temples – it is a charming backwater, and surprisingly sophisticated.
Patuxai, the Vientiane version of Arc de Triomphe.
Vientiane’s peaceful appearence hides a turbulent past. Over a millennium of its histyory the place has been abused by successive Vietnamese, Siamese, Burmese, Khmer and French conquerors. The signs of French occupation and colonialism is particularly in evidence, but today mostly in a positive way: beauful colonial buildings and the French cuisine.
However, the most surprising evidence of foreign influence was this sign:
[Swedish snus (snuff) is a kind of chewing tobacco, outlawed in the rest of the European Union.]