Things to do in Vientiane
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JoMa Bakery Café
JoMa is the first-choice lunch stop for many expatriate workers in Vientiane, partly because the large and stylish café is a good place for meetings but mainly because it does a brisk trade in delicious pastries, sandwiches, quiche, muesli, fruit, shakes and coffee. Wi-fi is available for US$2.50 an hour.
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Makphet
Run by Friends International (www.friends-international.org), this small restaurant trains homeless youths to cook and wait tables. The modern Lao cuisine is both interesting and tasty.
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Houey Hong Vocational Training Center for Women
You can learn how to dye textiles using natural pigments and then weave them on a traditional loom at the Houey Hong Vocational Training Center for Women. The NGO group, run by a Lao-Japanese woman, established this centre north of Vientiane to train disadvantaged rural women in the dying art of natural dyeing and traditional silk-weaving practices. Visitors can look for free or partake in the dyeing process (US$12, two hours, two stoles) or weaving (US$15, whole day). You keep the fruits of your labour.
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Fujiwara Restaurant
Just west of Wat In Paeng, Fujiwara has an epic menu including all the Japanese favourites and several set meals. Sushi is the specialty and it’s good, but not cheap.
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Croissant d’Or
The coffee, sandwiches and fine pastries make this petit French-run café a long-time favourite.
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Buddhas
Along the western side of the cloister is a pile of Buddhas that were damaged during the 1828 Siamese-Lao war. And in the sǐm (ordination hall) a slightly damaged Khmer-style Naga Buddha - which depicts the Buddha seated on a coiled cobra deity (naga), sheltered by the naga's multiheaded hood - is also on display just in front of the main seated Buddha; it is believed to date from the 13th century and was brought from a nearby Khmer site.
The sǐm is surrounded by a colonnaded terrace in the Bangkok style and topped by a five-tiered roof. The interior walls bear hundreds of Buddha niches similar to those in the cloister, as well as beautiful - but decaying - Jataka mural…
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Carol Cassidy Lao Textiles
Lao Textiles sells high-end contemporary, original-design fabrics inspired by older Lao weaving patterns, motifs and techniques. The American designer, Carol Cassidy, employs Lao weavers who work out the back of the attractive old French-Lao house. They are internationally known, with prices to match.
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Lao National Museum
With a limited collection of historical and revolutionary exhibits, the Lao National Museum will never be confused with the Louvre. But it does serve to sum up the country’s ongoing struggle to come to grips with its own identity, so it’s worth a look.
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Shooting Range
At the southeast corner of the National Stadium a nondescript door leads into a shooting range, where you can take aim at a paper target with a range of handguns and rifles. Prices start at US$1.20 for five rounds with a 0.22 calibre handgun.
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Sengdara Fitness
Vientiane’s first Western-style mega-gym, with stacks of machines, sauna, pool, massage, aerobics and yoga classes, and a juice bar and restaurant. Visitors can buy a US$6 day pass, which includes use of everything plus a one-hour massage – a very good deal.
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Douang Deuane Restaurant & Wine Bar
The tasty Lao, Thai and Vietnamese favourites here are complemented by an attractive traditional setting and a welcoming French host. We always have a good time when eating here, it’s that kind of place. The upstairs balcony has a good table for couples.
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ParadIce
In the grounds of the Centre Culturel et de Coopération Linguistique, this airy, comfortable bar and café is, understandably, popular with Francophone expats and serves cheap coffee (from US$0.30), sandwiches and simple meals.
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Scandinavian Bakery
This long-running favourite on Nam Phu sells fresh bread, pies, sandwiches (US$2), real Scandinavian-style pastries, cakes and ice cream. It has indoor and outdoor seating, and the upstairs room has satellite TV tuned to BBC or CNN.
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Full Moon Café
The relaxed-but-hip look of the Full Moon might lure you in, and once there the Asian fusion food won’t disappoint. The tapas and ever-changing set menus are worth considering.
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Pha That Luang
The most important national monument in Laos, Pha That Luang is a symbol of both the Buddhist religion and Lao sovereignty. Its full official name, Pha Chedi Lokajulamani, means World-Precious Sacred Stupa, and an image of the main stupa appears on the national seal and in countless other places. Legend has it that Ashokan missionaries from India erected a thâat or reliquary stupa here to enclose a piece of the Buddha’s breastbone as early as the 3rd century BC. Excavations have found no trace of this, but did find suggestion of a Khmer monastery that might have been built near here between the 11th and 13th centuries AD.
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Wat Sok Pa Luang
In a shaded, almost semi-rural setting that is entirely in keeping with its name ( wat paa means ‘forest temple’), Wat Sok Pa Luang is famous for its herbal saunas and expert massage. The masseurs are usually lay people who reside at the temple. After a relaxing sauna, you can take herbal tea on the veranda, then opt for a massage. You’re not supposed to wash away your accumulated perspiration for two or three hours afterward to allow the herbs to soak into your pores. A few women have commented that some masseurs may cover more territory than is comfortable. The sauna (US$1) and massage (US$2) operate from 1pm to 7pm daily.
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Bunmala Restaurant
It’s a little out of town, but this open-sided, timber-floored restaurant is about as archetypal Lao as you can find – and the food is great, too. There are all manner of Lao favourites, including pîng pét (roast duck), pîng pąa (grilled fish), pîng lîn (roast cow tongue) and pîng kai made from particularly plump chickens. For a classic Lao meal, order the (very hot) tąm màa-hung (papaya salad), kąeng naw mâi (soupy bamboo-shoot salad), sticky rice and draught beer. Delicious. It’s best to come in the evening when the full range of pîng is on offer and the draught beer is US$0.50.
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Patuxai
Reminiscent of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the Patuxai is Vientiane’s most prominent monument. The name is approximately equivalent to Arch ( pátųu, also translated as ‘door’ or ‘gate’) of Triumph ( xái, from the Sanskrit jaya or ‘victory’), but unlike its Parisian namesake the Patuxai boasts four, rather than two, archways. It was built in the 1960s with US-purchased cement that was supposed to have been used for the construction of a new airport. Hence it’s sometimes called ‘the vertical runway’.
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Wat Ong Teu Mahawihan
This temple is one of the most important in Laos. It was originally built in the mid-16th century by King Setthathirat and is believed to occupy a site first used for religious purposes as far back as the 3rd century. But like almost every other temple in Vientiane it was destroyed in later wars with the Siamese, then rebuilt in the early 20th century. The Hawng Sangkhalat (Deputy Patriarch) of the Lao monastic order has his official residence here and presides over the Buddhist Institute, a school for monks who come from all over the country to study dhamma (the Buddha’s teachings).
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That Dam
Sitting at the centre of a quiet roundabout near the centre of Vientiane, legend has it that the stupa now known as That Dam was once coated in a layer of gold. The gold is said to have been carted off by the Siamese during their pillaging of 1828, after which the stupa took the ‘black’ sobriquet in memory of the dastardly act. However, another myth is slightly at odds with this. It says That Dam is the abode of a dormant seven-headed dragon that came to life during the 1828 Siamese–Lao war and protected local citizens, though apparently not the stupa’s gold…
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Vieng Sawan
In the middle of Chinatown, Vieng Sawan is a bustling open-sided restaurant that is a real Lao eating experience. It specialises in nǎem néuang (barbecued pork meatballs) and many varieties of yáw (spring rolls), usually sold in ‘sets’ (sut) with khào pûn, fresh lettuce leaves, mint, basil, various sauces for dipping, sliced starfruit and green plantain. You can also order sìin ja here, thinly sliced pieces of raw beef which customers boil in small cauldrons of coconut juice and eat with dipping sauces, or some of the many varieties of spring rolls.
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Pyongyang Restaurant
Owned by the same people as the Phnom Penh restaurant of the same name, this Pyongyang is even more surreal. Waitresses direct from North Korea, trained to sing and dance since childhood, will take your order one minute and step up to the microphone the next to perform perfectly choreographed dance routines and/or play electric guitar and drums (it starts about 7.30pm). It’s a complete trip. Don’t, however, let them order for you, as you’ll be served only the most expensive dishes on what is a relatively pricey menu. There is no obvious sign; look for ‘Korean Restaurant’ on the window.
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Kaysone Phomvihane Memorial
Opened in 1995 to celebrate the late president’s 75th birthday, the Kaysone Phomvihane Memorial, near Km 6 on Rte 13 south, serves as a tribute to Indochina’s most pragmatic communist leader. The memorial is actually two jarringly different sites. Kaysone’s old house is a model of modesty suggesting he might have lived in less luxury than any other world leader. In contrast the museum is a vast Vietnamese-style celebration of the cult of Kaysone, a cult he never encouraged. Visit the house first.
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Lao National Culture Hall
Opposite the Lao National Museum, and dwarfing it, is the monumentally proportioned Lao National Culture Hall. The outsized and ugly hall was built by the Chinese government in the late 1990s as a ‘gift to the people of Laos’. It hosts occasional cultural events as varied as French cinema, Lao classical dance and even beauty pageants, but with no publicly available schedule of events you’ll need to keep a close eye on the Vientiane Times for an announcement.
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Vientiane Hash House Harriers
The Vientiane Hash House Harriers welcome runners to their two weekly hashes. The Saturday hash is the more challenging run and starts at 3.45pm from Nam Phu. It’s followed by food and no shortage of Beerlao. Monday’s easier run starts at 5pm from varying locations – look for maps at the Scandinavian Bakery or Asia Vehicle Rentals, where owner Joe Rumble is more than happy to help out.
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