It's official. At just about 9:20am I did my first overland border crossing into laos across the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge. Walking through the Thai immagration booth, I watch my passport be stamped out of Thailand, and directed across the bridge to enter Laos. It's funny being technically "nowhere" for about 5 minutes. On the bridge I'm neither in Thailand or Laos. I've been stamped out of Thailand but not yet into Laos. Maybe I have a dry sense of humor. Anyhow across the bridge I reached Lao customs where getting a visa was really as simple as filling out a small form and handing my passport, a picture, and $36 through the window. Try getting into America that way. Having been stamped into Lao PDR ( People's Democratic Republic ) and a very cool looking Lao visa in my passport, I was off to the capital, Vientiane. I looked around for a guesthouse for a while but having found nothing to my liking I settled for the place listed on travelfish as the best bet. The room was very nice but wasn't in it longer than dropping my bag in it. I was in Laos, and it was time to explore..... Vientiane is quite an amazing place. The capital city of an entire country, yet it's not a city in my book. It has the look and feel of a large town or village. Trees line every sidewalk in large numbers, fields outnumber buildings, no skyscrapers or even buildings higher than 3 floors for the most part. Vientiane is a perfect mix of new and old.... Paved roads only in the center of town, all other roads are rocky as hell and dirt. Lao flags sit along side there communist flag on nearly every home, quite nice actually the look of it. I'm already in love with Laos.... Riding around seeing the Thai side of the mekong river, there's something amazing about being on the side I was staring at for so long.....

       After a quick breakfast at a great place with a english menu, I bartered hard for almost 5 minutes with a tuk tuk driver and cut the fare nearly in half from 200.000 kip down to 120,000 kip. Yes it's incredibly amusing dealing with a place that the smallest bill is 1000 kip and a US dollar is equal to 8,490 kip. :-) I had my driver for the day, and was off to Xiang Khouak. Turns out the amazing statues I saw yesterday was actually the master piece of a Lao artist who fled to Thailand after communism to continue his art. I was no on my way to see his first sculpture garden on the Lao side of the river. Once again, this guys stuff kicks some serious ass. This place had a cave that you could get to the top off and view the entire park! The inside is incredibly small and even my skinny body had a hard time making it through the narrow openings... finally reaching the top I took a photo through the last opening....

      After soaking up more of Asia's greatest statue's, I was off to That Luang and the  Patouxai, Two amazing structures right next door to each other but couldn't be more different. The golden temple that is That Luang is quite impressive, although the act that you can't enter leaves much to be desired, However the massive amount of glimmering gold on the outside is surely still enough to impress....

     Soon after, at the arch de triumph of Thailand called the Patouxai, I found here what my just top more than half of Thailand by its sheer perfect placement of architecture and the park around it.  Here I found a truly remarkable structure, and one that I was allowed to go on the roof of at that. The view from the top was nice, and you really see just how much of a town feel this place has outside the few center blocks... Nothing but tree's and small houses for miles....

     Leaving my wonderful arch, I head back to town to eat and enjoy the atmosphere of one of the many cafe's by the river...... Not sure how long I'll be here as the capital is a little expensive but it's worth it.... The main thing that's hard is getting used to a new money system! I was so comfortable with baht I could instantly know what the price was in dollars when told in baht. Now it's like that will be 89,000 kip,,, What? lol Takes a bit to get used to but so did baht... Guess I'll have to make up for my overspending here by being cheap later....