Safe, low-key and humble, Vientiane embodies a lot of what makes Laos such a wonderful destination. It’s the perfect start to a journey through Southeast Asia’s overlooked heartland.
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Hugging the western bank of the Mekong River and waving at Thailand across the water, Vientiane is the official capital of Laos.
You won’t find a throbbing night life in Vientiane or that zesty thrill that hits you from a manic, overpacked capital city.
Indeed, Laos’ full name ‘Laos PDR’ — or Laos People’s Democratic Republic, locals here prefer Laos Please Don’t Rush. It’s a joke, but it’s also kind of accurate. Like all of Laos, Vientiane’s pace is slower than you’ll find in pretty much any other Southeast Asian city.
But with fun dive bars, thriving little night markets and hundreds of Buddhist temples alongside the ubiquitous crumbing French colonial architecture, Vientiane offers the perfect stepping-off point for Laos.
We travelled here with InsideAsia Tours, a global tour operator that creates fully tailored cultural adventures around Asia that takes care of all the tricky parts of your trip, gives you a guide and lets you relax while having an immersive experience at the same time.
InsideAsia Tours is part of the Inside Travel Group and sister to travel brand InsideJapan Tours. Specialising in digging deeper beneath the surface of destinations, the Inside Travel Group is all about cultural adventure tourism. This brings you so much closer to local life wherever you are.
InsideAsia Tours operates not just in Laos, but also Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Borneo, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea with bespoke tours to make your budget, timeframes and interests.
You can see our full itinerary in brief here and also the other destinations we visited here.
This is Vientiane’s massive new train station that services the country’s new high-speed train line. You can read our review of the Laos’ bullet train here.
Vientiane — Laos’ Little Capital
Vientiane is an interesting place. It’s the administrative centre of Laos, which doesn’t sound very exciting. However, it means the city’s well organised, safe and relatively clean (Laos still is a developing country), and still has plenty going on.
People have likened Vientiane to Canberra. There are even all the foreign embassies here, just like in the ACT.
I also think it feels a bit like someone’s taken several city blocks from Kuala Lumpur, stripped most of the traffic, cut down the population to 1/4 and dropped it alongside the Mekong.
Temples
Vientiane has the most Buddhist temples in Laos, and the oldest too. Wat Si Saket is the last remaining temple from before the Siamese (Thai) invasion of 1828, which saw the city sacked.
We also visited the Golden Stupa, an enormous gold monolith that tapers to a sharp point. It’s one of the most important Buddhist monuments in Laos and its surrounding walls house hundreds of Buddhist and Khmer statues and artefacts.
Visiting these temples with our excellent InsideAsia guide Sakhoe meant we had a much deeper understanding of what we were looking at with all the stencils and statues, the ceremonies and stupas, that surround Buddhism.
Monuments
Patuxay Monument. If this national monument and its road look familiar that’s because the Lao people modelled it on the Arc de Triomphe and Les Champs-Elysées in Paris. Unlike the French version, this arch has four, not two, archways, has five decorative towers on top and you can go inside this one. There’s a museum on Patuxay here and superb views of the city from the top level.
It took 11 years to build the Patuxay — between 1957 and 1968 — when Laos kicked the French colonisers out after a 60-year protectorate.
It is Vientiane’s war memorial, commemorating lives lost in WWII and in the war of independence against the French.
History and Culture
The Cooperative Orthotic & Prosthetic Enterprise (COPE) Visitor Centre. During the Vietnam War, America dropped some 260 million bombs on Laos, making it the most bombed country in the world. Around 30% (approx. 80 mil) of these bombs did not explode.
COPE Visitor Centre shows the damage these UXOs (UnExploded Ordinance) can cause, while also giving access to prosthetic, orthotic and mobility devices to thousands of injured locals.
Lao Disabled Women’s Centre. Helping disabled and vulnerable Lao women learn crafts and skills, the Lao disabled Women’s Centre is a brilliant enterprise. There’s also a shop here where you can buy some of the handicrafts the women make.
Buddha Park. This unusual sculpture park, started by an ex-monk, is home over 200 Buddhist and Hindu statues. It’s interesting enough to wander around looking at the statues, but when our guide Sakhoe explains the meaning of some of them, it sheds a new light on what we’re looking at.
Bars, Markets and Restaurants
While we’re exploring Vientiane, we find so many great food options.
The Vientiane Night Market in Ban Haysoke is excellent, with lots of local dishes to try, including some of the more exotic unusual things like grilled crickets and khai luuk (fertilised duck egg). But the best thing we found was the shredded slow-cooked pork belly stuffed into a crispy roti.
There are also plenty of restaurants on every street and some very cool bars.
We recommend Laodi Bar, a ramshackle place right on the river and is perfect for a sunset beer, and at the other end of the spectrum 525 Eat & Drink, a slick cocktail bar in the heart of the city.
Also worth mentioning is Doi Ka Noi Restaurant, which was included in the Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2025 list.
Where to stay in Vientiane
Because Vientiane is the diplomatic and administrative centre of Laos, there are plenty of lovely hotels here.
We stayed at the Lao Poet Hotel, perfectly located in the Ban Haysoke District. Its elegant art deco decor inspired by 1930s Indochina, combined with all the modern trappings of a luxury hotel, make this an ideal place to stay in Vientiane.
There’s even a rooftop infinity pool and bar with views out over the city, and a wellness spa if you feel like a pampering.
This comfortable yet chic boutique hotel takes its name from a renowned poet from 19th Century Maha Keo, whose house was once where the hotel now stands.
