Vientiane - the most relaxed travel blog post of this blog

The chillest capital city in the world, according to the internet, is the one of the Laotians... uh Laos. A nice play on words, but the Laotians don't seem chaotic at all. We also didn't notice a big difference in terms of being extremely relaxed compared to Cambodia and Vietnam. However, they are all more patient than the Chinese!

Who would have thought, we booked a night bus for the third time. The route from Pakse to Vientiane seemed to be quite well-traveled and the facilities were really good compared to the other night buses.

Together with other backpackers and a few locals, we took a fully-packed tuk-tuk to the city and to our hotel early in the morning. Since the bus station was a bit outside, we needed at least half an hour.

We try to book our accommodations very centrally if possible. This also applied to our hotel in Vientiane. We decided to spend only one night and two full days here. It was also planned to leisurely see a few things and not rush to see as much as possible in a short time.
But first, we had to find a nice place for breakfast. Since there are so many eating options on our trip and you often don't know where there might be particularly delicious food, we usually decide based on the ambiance. The place should look nice and well-maintained from the outside, meaning the kitchen (we hope) should be in order, or it should simply appear cozy to us. Since we have complained about stomach issues a few times, we are not so comfortable with "plastic chair restaurants", as we lovingly call them now (these are food carts where mostly poorer people sell local specialties for little money). We have encountered them literally everywhere in every country since China. Mostly only local people with low income eat there. Even if the chicken is roasted on the grill for an extra week, we think you have to try it once. And even at "real" restaurants, you can never expect 100% hygienic conditions in Southeast Asia.

Note from Nadine: Just skip the meat ;)

We found a western-like cafe and Max got "one of the best burgers" he ever had and Nadine was happy about a healthy and nutritious western breakfast. Because otherwise there was often only "white bread or lunch for breakfast" as she likes to call it. In Asia, people often eat soup in the morning - still "funny" for Nadine.

After that, we visited some sights in the city.