Vientiane Travel Video Guide

Vientiane Travel Itinerary

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Hugging a bend of the Mekong River, the low-rise capital of Laos is a quaint and easygoing place compared to Southeast Asia's other frenetic capitals, looking more like a rambling collection of villages than a city. However, in the mere decade since Laos reopened its doors to foreign visitors, VIENTIANE has changed with dizzying rapidity: new businesses are popping up all over the place, and scores of old shade trees have been cut down to accommodate an ever-multiplying number of cars and motorbikes. The city's history has been a turbulent one, as its meagre collection of structures from the past suggests. It had been occupied and subsequently abandoned by the Mon and then the Khmer long before the Lao king Setthathilat moved his capital here from Louang Phabang in 1560. After that, the city was overrun or occupied several times by the Burmese, Chinese and, most spectacularly, by the Siamese who levelled the entire place in 1828. By the end of the nineteenth century, the French controlled most of what is now Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and had rebuilt Vientiane as an administrative capital. As with other urban centres in the region, the majority of modern Vientiane's merchant class are ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese, whose forefathers immigrated to Laos during the French era. Though the city was left relatively unscathed by the Second Indochina War, a large percentage of Vientiane's population found it necessary to escape across the Mekong after the formation of the Lao People's Democratic Republic; they were replaced by immigrants from the former "liberated zone" in northeastern Laos, further changing Vientiane's ethnic make-up. Not until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was the government forced to rethink its opinions of capitalism, paving the way for the explosion of new ventures and businesses.

Two days is sufficient to see Vientiane's sights. High on your list should be the museum of Lao art, housed at the Haw Pha Kaew , and the socialist-era Lao Revolutionary Museum . The placid Buddhist monastery known as Wat Sisaket offers a good half-day diversion, and you should take a ride out to That Louang , Laos's most important

religious building, to admire the effects of a sunset on its golden surface. The most popular day-trip destination is Xiang Khouan or the "Buddha Park", a Hindu-Buddhist fantasy in ferro-concrete on the banks of the Mekong. Off the beaten track is the eco-resort of Lao Pako , on the Nam Ngum River, while further afield, the laid-back town of Vang Viang , set amid spectacular scenery on the road to Louang Phabang, has recently become a travellers' favourite.

Your Tips For Vientiane

• Northeast Laos Travel Videos
  Laos Travel Itinerary
  Difficult to reach and short on proper tourist sites, the remote northeast is one of the least-visited parts of Laos. - Laos
  

• Lao Pako Laos Travel Videos
  Laos Travel Itinerary
  LAO PAKO , an environmentally friendly resort on the Nam Ngum River, 50km northeast of Vientiane, makes a good trip out of the capital. - Laos
  

• South central Laos Travel Videos
  Laos Travel Itinerary
  Many travellers see very little of south central Laos , spending just a night or two in the town of Savannakhet before pressing on to the far south or crossing the border into Vietnam. - Laos
  

• Far south Laos Travel Videos
  Laos Travel Itinerary
  Bordered by Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, the far south conveniently divides into two regions, with Pakxe , the most important market town and the access point for the Chong Mek border crossing into Thailand , as the hub. - Laos
  

• Vang Viang Laos Travel Videos
  Laos Travel Itinerary
  Travelling by road from Vientiane to Louang Phabang takes you through the spectacular limestone karst forest of VANG VIANG , 155km north of the capital, which, with its beautiful caves and nearby ethnic minority villages, makes an ideal point for a stopover. - Laos
  

• Louang Phabang Laos Travel Videos
  Laos Travel Itinerary
  Nestling in a slim valley shaped by lofty, green mountains and cut by the swift Mekong and Khan rivers, LOUANG PHABANG exudes remote tranquillity and casual grandeur. - Laos
  

• Far north Laos Travel Videos
  Laos Travel Itinerary
  Decades of war and neglect have done their part to keep this isolated region in far northern Laos from developing and have unwittingly preserved a way of life that has virtually vanished in neighbouring countries. - Laos
  

• Vientiane Laos Travel Videos
  Laos Travel Itinerary
  Hugging a bend of the Mekong River, the low-rise capital of Laos is a quaint and easygoing place compared to Southeast Asia's other frenetic capitals, looking more like a rambling collection of villages than a city. - Laos