{"id":4374,"date":"2015-11-20T02:42:04","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T02:42:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=4374"},"modified":"2026-05-12T20:40:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T19:40:36","slug":"the-arc-de-triomphe-a-monster-of-concrete-in-vientiane-laos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2015\/11\/20\/the-arc-de-triomphe-a-monster-of-concrete-in-vientiane-laos\/","title":{"rendered":"The Arc de Triomphe, A Monster Of Concrete in Vientiane, Laos"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Wat
Wat Si Saket in Vietiane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Vientiane, the capitol of Laos\u2026\u2026\u2026.. a curious place. The guide book said it was \u2018languid to say the least\u2019\u2026.? A friend told us that we really only needed to stay there for one night, but we had already booked for three. So we stayed for three nights and calmly looked for places of interest to visit. The weather was more oppressive than up in Luang Prabang and the temperatures hovered in the mid-thirties, but we still used our feet and wandered the city looking around every corner. We really didn\u2019t need three nights, but we filled every day with something and now feel like we don\u2019t really need to go back anytime soon.<\/p>\n

\"
The view from our hotel room over the Mekong and night market in Vietiane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

On our first night, we discovered a very extensive night market, full of fascinating people and some free for all Zumba classes on the riverfront. Rodney wouldn\u2019t join in, but there were a few tourists who did. The next morning, we walked away from the riverfront to find That Dum Stupa, what a great name from a westerner\u2019s point of view, though it actually translates as the Black Stupa. It wasn\u2019t in the guide book, and it wasn\u2019t that impressive, although the Laotians believe that it is inhabited by a seven headed N\u0101ga (cobra). Thankfully we didn\u2019t meet the beast and moved on. We cooled off briefly in an air-conditioned shopping centre and then hit the road again.<\/p>\n

\"That
That Dum Stupa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Just up the road was Patuxai, the Victory Monument; this unfinished structure was one of only four places mentioned in the guide book and one of them sounded like a rather uninspiring museum and the other two were temples; we\u2019ve already seen an awful lot of those. Despite getting an entry in the guide book, it is curiously described as \u2018an incongruous sight\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 On reaching what is considered as Vientiane\u2019s \u2018Arc de Triomphe\u2019, we read a plaque on the wall and it cheerfully describes it thus: \u201cFrom a closer distance it appears even less impressive, like a monster of concrete\u201d; how very candid!!!\u00a0 Nevertheless, we had to agree with both of these descriptions.<\/p>\n

\"Patuxai\"
Patuxai, looking quite impressive from further away….<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The concrete needed to create Patuxai was donated in 1969 by the USA and was intended to build a new airport, so some of the locals refer to it as the \u2018vertical runway\u2019; that also gave us a giggle.<\/p>\n

There are a lot of steps inside one of the corners and a break is provided on three levels, each of which is filled with market stalls, all selling some of the worst souvenirs we\u2019ve ever come across. The top level is open to the sky and did afford panoramic views across the city, but there\u2019s really not much of interest to see.\u00a0\u00a0 We did enjoy watching a large school group noisily surge up through the building; they seemed far more interested in looking at the souvenirs than the arch itself. It was fun watching the vendors desperately trying to watch the hands of every child hovering over their goods and then quite a laugh seeing three engrossed little shoppers get left behind and rush outside to a rather annoyed looking teacher. As it was darn hot up there, we didn\u2019t stay long and headed back to our hotel for much needed cold drinks and a cold shower. That evening a massive storm wiped out any chance of the night market getting underway and from our hotel balcony, we watched all the stall holders traipsing back home with their barrows and scooters overloaded with goods in the depressing pouring rain.<\/p>\n

\"Schoolchildren
Schoolchildren below Patuxai<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"The
The whole wall was full of Buddhas in Wat Si Saket in Vientiane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Vientiane, the capitol of Laos\u2026\u2026\u2026.. a curious place. The guide book said it was \u2018languid to say the least\u2019\u2026.? A friend told us that we really only needed to stay there for one night, but we had already booked for three. So we stayed for three nights and calmly looked for places of interest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-snippets-of-asia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8257,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4374\/revisions\/8257"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}