VIENTIANE, LAOS
Okay, back on track.

I spent the last four days in Laos, searching for relics of the twenty year civil war that ended in 1975. Specifically, I was looking for craters and bomb casings left over from the two million tons of explosives dropped by American planes. I found plenty but we’ll get to that later – for now, let’s enjoy sunset on the mighty Mekong!

Vientiane is just across the river from Thailand (you can see Thailand in a few of these, in fact), and most of the tourist activity happens in the streets beside it. When I came here four and a half years ago there was barely anything – a few guesthouses, some “Western” restaurants and a bar or two. Now there are dozens of hotels, restaurants from all over the world, coffeeshops with wifi and more bars than you could ever possibly patronize. They’re building something big along the riverside too, probably an enormous and expensive promenade. I’d really love to talk about how everybody’s ruined it, how it was such a great city before it was “discovered”, but in truth Vientiane’s always been boring as hell. At least now you can grab a decent burger.