of money and we would eat at decent places! So after our disappointing meal we headed back for some games of yahtzee and an early night. This place was definitely an early to bed early to rise kind of place and we were trying to get our body clocks in situ!

For our final full day in Vientiane we decided to go and check out the Patouxai, Laos answer to the Arc de Triomphe! It is a large concrete arch built in a similar style (from a distance!) to the Arch de Triomphe. It was built in the 1950’s to commemorate causalities of war on the Lao Government side. Apparently it is built out of concrete that was donated by the USA for the construction of an airport, so is referred to by locals as ‘the vertical runway’! It’s not really finished and looks impressive from afar and does kind of have its own charm even when you see all of the cracks close up! You can climb to the top and the views

from there over the city are brilliant. It is only then that you realise how green and spread out the city is. In front of this monument are some more impressive fountains. We were treated to a fountain show and wow we both could have stood there for hours in the lovely sunshine watching this almost water art! Neither of us could still quite get it into our heads that it was the 1st of December, had we not have been visiting Wats then we most definitely would have been in shorts, it was a glorious day, the sunniest December day either of us had ever seen!

From here we walked down towards the Buddhist stupa, That Louang, Laos most important religious building and its national symbol. After walking the 1.5km from Patouxai to get there, we were told by some very friendly army men that it wasn’t open today as they were making preparations for tomorrow’s national day. Along with us there were