I had been cautioned that Vientiane was not the most exciting of capital cities and that definitely rang true – I did “the sights” in about 6 hours: lots of wats and a crazy Arc de Triomphe (a plaque on the wall stated “From a closer distance it appears less impressive, like a monster of concrete”. They’re such braggers, the Laotians.)

After exhausting Vientiane’s delights, I hopped on a bus to Ban Khoun Kham, a very tiny village in central Laos that sees 3 tourists a week. I arrived in the afternoon and headed off to the tourism office to pick up a guide (Keh) to check out a waterfall. Keh ran up the mountain like a goat, with me in my flip-flops trailing after him, crashing into spiders and even a snake (lucky me, apparently). That evening, while I was having dinner with the family who ran my guesthouse, 2 elephants came trumping past with a flock of little children following. The kids were actually more excited to see me than the elephants, which goes to show how remote Ban Khoun Kam is, I guess.

The next day I woke early to hire a bike and putter off to Tham Kong Lo, a 7,5km underground river in a limestone karst. Pretty stunning scenery on the way to the cave: the road runs along a fertile valley between limestone cliffs, dotted with tiny hamlets and shepherd’s huts. The cave itself was impressive – it takes 2 hours to pootle upstream in a leaking boat from one side of the karst to the other in total darkness. I did note and enjoy the irony of my spending considerable time and money to get there and sit on a boat for 2 hours on a river in complete darkness, occasionally having to get out in the river and pull the boat over rocks.

That evening Keh invited me over to the tourism office for dinner; he had made laap, a spicy meat salad. When I asked what sort of meat it was, he answered, “Sandal!” I looked down at the bowl of mashed flip-flops in front of me. “Sandal?” I asked. “No! Scandal! Scandal!”. I did indeed think it was a terrible scandal that this man had been reduced to eating footwear, but before I could say anything he leapt to the fridge and got out a very stiff, bald squirrel (it could have been rat, but I’m going with squirrel). Anyhow, it was pretty tasty whatever it was, albeit a little hot for my wimpy taste buds.

The first bus back to Vientiane was scheduled to leave at 7am the following day, so I naively woke early to catch it… when it arrived at 8:15am. Well at least it came and at least I got a seat, not a little plastic chair in the aisle, but it did mean that I had to spend another night in dreary Vientiane, rather than heading north to Vang Vieng that afternoon (missed the Vang Vieng bus by 12 minutes. Hmmm…)

So I checked back into the guesthouse I had stayed in before and wandered down the road where I met up with Alicia, the owner/manager of the hostel where Gillian and I had stayed in Hanoi. She was over with her mother and step-father and the 3 of them invited me to dinner on the riverfront; a nice, mellow end to Vientiane.