I was a bit sad to leave Vang Viang behind, but my extended visa will run out at the second of March and I still have all the south of Laos to visit. So I left Van Viang for the capital of Laos, Vientiane yesterday. The trip took a bit longer since the brakes our bus broke down and had to be exchanged at some point, but eventually we got there.

Everybody I met on this trip so far said that Vientiane is a dump with absolutely nothing to do. Well, it certainly hasn’t the nightlife of Vang Viang but I think it’s actually quite alright. Nothing where you’d like to spend a week, but there are tons of little food places and fruit stalls at the bank of the Mekong River and all in all it’s quite pretty. Sure, everything closes at 11 pm but that’s quite normal for Laos, so I don’t see how you could hold it against the city. And finally I’m able to access the internet at a decent speed and reasonable costs: 100 kip/minute for broadband access as opposed to 300 kip/minute for 56k in Luang Prabang and VangViang. And even 600 kip/minute in Luang Namtha!

After having arrived here yesterday I checked into the Phanthavong Guest House where I got a room for 4 USD. Unfortunately this place turned out to be a mosquito-infested hell! I already noticed some mozzies when I checked in, but didn’t think it’d be really bad. In the evening though, it already looked like there were something like 20 mosquitoes buzzing around my room, so I decided to light a mosquito-coil in my room and killed about six or seven by hand. I also moved my backpack in front of the door since there was five-centimeter high gap between the floor and the bottom of the door. So prepared I thought I could get to sleep – the coil would surely chase the remaining mozzies out of my room.

Considering what I saw the next morning, I suppose I can consider myself to be happy that I was only bitten three of four times during night: When I woke up there were at least 100 mosquitoes in my room! I’m not kidding! I could see loads of them fly around the room and when I grabbed my backpack to get to some of my stuff, a whole swarm of mosquitoes rose from it! Yikes. As you can probably imagine this was the time when I decided to leave the place, no matter what. Fortunately I found another place nearby that seems to be really nice: Phatoumphone Guest House where I got an en suite room for 6 USD. A bit expensive, but I felt I could treat myself to it.

Later today I’ll pick up my visa for Cambodia and tomorrow I’ll take the bus to Savannakhet. By now I’ve also abandoned all thoughts of crossing from Stung Treng (in Cambodia) to Siam Reap by land. When I asked about that road at the embassy, the guy behind the counter simply started laughing at me as if he had never heard something more funny in his whole life. And the Lonely Planet Cambodia I bought yesterday describes the route as a logging path that quickly turns into a jungle path only occasionally used by ox-carts. Well, on my Southeast-Asia map it looked quite big. But from all I heard about Cambodian roads that doesn’t have to mean a whole lot. Apparently Cambodian pot holes eat people – and cars – for fun.