Walking the streets of Vientiane.

On the main street of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, stands this rather confident-looking structure. What’s more… it’s of a somewhat unusual design for Southeast Asia:

It’s called Patuxai, and it turns out it’s an “Arc de Triomphe”. But that figures, since Laos is a former French colony (and you still quite often see and hear bits of French here). So, if Paris has its own Arc de Triomphe, then there’s got to be one like it here too! But with a Laotian architectural accent :)

It’s fun listening to the locals’ take on it. They’ll tell you that foreign funds were originally granted to Laos to build a new airport, but the local authorities decided otherwise – and built this arch, complete with fountain and promenade. To which the locals responded by dubbing the structure “the runway” :)

But to heck with the details: you can climb right up to the very top, which means – up we went! It’s not a long climb: ~200 steps, and there we were.

It’d be a bit of a stretch to call the views all around splendid… but, well, here’s Vientiane, as it is, in four directions:

Here’s what it’s like up on the roof of the arch:

But it was time to dash off again! Where to, and why the rush? Simple: evening was approaching, and that’s exactly when Vientiane’s main landmark – the golden Pha That Luang stupa – would be bathed in the very best sunset colors. Right here:

By the way, on our very first day in Laos we flew past it in the helicopter:

This structure’s really quite sizable (though it does lose out a little to its neighbor, Borobudur), and it’d have been nice to walk around inside the stupa, but, alas, that’s not possible. Nevertheless – what a magical construction!

We were told that, if you walk around the perimeter of the stupa three times, “everything will be good for everyone”. And who am I to doubt it? So off we popped!…

Every now and then we had to stop – to take in the stupa from different angles and in the changing light of the setting sun…

What a wonderful place!

Just across the road from the stupa is the Wat That Luang Tai temple – another place that’s absolutely worth a visit.

Impressive views. Just a pity the ubiquitous spider’s-web wires – a pet hate of mine – spoil the aesthetic somewhat.

Naturally, there are various installations on Buddhist themes.

Now what is this, exactly? Just curious…

Unfortunately, our guide didn’t fill us in on the meaning behind this sculpture, and AIs got their answers all scrambled and glitched like crazy. Some suggested it was a “screen adaptation” of the Ramayana, but the presence of Ganesha and a Nāga in the ensemble rules that theory out. Never mind…