Laos’ capital is more like a town than a city and coming from bustling Vietnam, you realize pretty fast that things go much slower here. The town centre is craving for every tourism Dollar it can get as you don’t see any locals roaming around the streets that have no business with people like me. Therefore you have westernized shops, restaurants and bars downtown much unlike the many hawker stalls in Hanoi. The French colonized the “Country of a Million Elephants” and united three individual kingdoms into one protectorate, adding an additional “s” for plural to its name. Hence Laos will be called Lao from now on as everybody else does in Asia.
The bus trip from Hanoi to Vientiane is called “Bus from Hell” on various Internet forums as you will see why. The so called “sleeper bus” is very famous in Vietnam and probably the best way to get from town to town. I used it from Saigon to Nha Trang and then to Hoi An and from there to Hanoi. The journeys take about 9-12 hours and starts between 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm. There will be one or more stops along the way depending on whether there is a toilet on board. Sometimes you have your own private seat, as shown in the picture, sometimes you have two seats next to each other and you are “cuddling” with some foreigner. Actually a resting bus would be more specific, as you rarely get much sleep. The roads are partly in horrible conditions with many potholes, or the driver honks to let someone know he is overtaking, etc. Also you need the physique of a Vietnamese to be comfy in those seats. I am just 177cm and would like to see how a guy with 195cm is doing. Anyway it gets you to where you want to be, you can also save the money for a guest house, but you don’t arrive there in best conditions.