Vientiene is a nice place, unlike any other Southeast Asian capital I've seen. Mostly lowrise French colonial buildings, chickens sqwawking on the roads; the whole place seems to be undergoing some directionless building programme. The town centre marker is a fountain (under construction) with a couple of restaurants around it and not much else. The big thing to do here is have dinner at sunset beside the Mekong, looking across the river to Thailand, where there is a riverside club set there to tempt tourists back to the land of late opening hours and proper clubs - the music booms loudly across almost a kilometer of river to reach the ears of those of us who haven't been clubbing in almost 2 months.
So I thought I'd see what Laos clubs were like. After dinner with Marianne, she went off to ring her boyfriend and I recalled seeing a niteclub (their spelling) at some point. Off I went, and marched in through the doors bravely enough. A band was playing, and there were 4 other people in the club. Slightly dauntingly empty - more so when they all pursued me and I realised they were all staff. But they claimed they were open, so I ordered a drink and sat down. The music was direst Laoatian - pop ballad style, by people who dressed up for the occasion; one guitarist who spent the whole time frowning in concentration at his guitar; the other, more professional guitarist didn't need to look at his guitar and occasionally got so carried away by the music as to sway with it; various singers, including the drummer. Reasonably melodious, but nothing you could dance to. Though the place still seemed empty, there was a constant flood of women in evening dresses going from the front door to the Ladies. On the offchance that the party was there, I went in. It wasn't. They were just spending the evening doing and redoing their makeup. On my return, someone started singing in english - 'I just called to say I love you'; 'Only you' - pleasant enough, but still nothing to dance to. Then, suddenly! the dancefloor lights went on! Twenty women (evening dresses and all) and two couples went onto the dancefloor! The music was still slow and laoatian, but they were dancing! Laoatian dancing consists of shuffling on the spot, with your arms held out horizontally from the elbows, occasionally moving your hands. The people mostly left the dancefloor after the first couple of songs - all that remained was one guy (surely gay) in a sportscoat and his girlfriend (or whatever). He had evidently paid for dancing lessons and was gonna use them. They waltzed to every song, irrespective of rhythm, until after 20 minutes, the dancefloor lights went off - end of dancing time. The band was still playing, but I'd had enough partying for one night and went home.

The next day, I went to Buddha Park. It was created by this guru figure in the 50s to represent his new religion - a fusion of Hinduism and Buddhism - hundreds of concrete sculptures of all the gods across both religions, dominated by a giant reclining concrete buddha, 100 feet long. The best one was a giant hemisphere, 60 ft tall, with a concrete tree growing out of the top - you walk around the inside, which has another smaller hemisphere with windows so you can see further statues inside; divided into layers so you can climb to the top and sit on top of the sphere, next to the tree. Probably very symbolic, but I've no idea of what. Met a monk en route, Saseman - he went there to talk to tourists to practice his english, which certainly needed practising but I laud the effort. Apparently, he was just a temporary monk, who would be returning to the outside world soon to become - an accountant. Of all things. He couldn't explain much to me, but took me back to his room at the temple so I could help him with his English exercises. A monk's bedroom, despite their ordained few possessions, is as messy as any other blokes. It was painted pink, a shade which I think the paint manufacturers were trying to get rid of; with pin-up girls on the wall - demure, fully clothed Laoatian lassies advertising beer. I corrected a few exercises, without being able to enlighten him at all as to why some things were right and some wrong (such a complicated language! so much for my degree in english lit). He asked for a kiss, which I'm sure monks aren't meant to, and I refused.
Anyway, the next day, having exhausted the pleasures of Vientiane, I went on south to Pakse. Marianne, being in a hurry, got the plane down and I haven't seen her since - she went on to the Boloven Plateau. I, feeling that $90 was considerably more than the $4 bus journey, bussed it. Hellish. The bus was as uncomfortable as the average London city bus - certainly not meant for journeys of 16 hours. As usual, I got the drunk on the bus next to me, getting annoyed when I didn't speak Lao and that I refused his beer. Luckily, he was only on for an hour or two, and I stretched out as comfortably as I could across the aisle. However, the bus was going over seriously bumpy roads most of the night - like trying to sleep on a drill. And it stopped frequently, all lights on and local radio playing even more Laoatian ballads loudly, and I'd have to sit up so everyone could pile on and off. It was not a good night.
Anyway, now I'm in Pakse and think I'll move on today to Champasak. Pakse has little to offer beside transport to other places, though the people are lovely; all the little kids come running to say Sabedi and shake hands and then run away giggling. Myself and some other travellers I met at dinner went to a nightclub and confirmed my previous experiences - equally empty, though the music was a bit better; rock blues-ish style, no singers. Champasak has some rather good Khmer ruins - might be pointless, since I'll be seeing Angkor Wat soon and that is the ultimate - but what the hell.