Places visited: Vientiane
Costs of things: Beer ($1), Meals ($3 to $6), hotel ($14)
After leaving the little town of Phonghong, we cycled into the booming metropolis of Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Ok, so the city itself only has a population of 200,000, but for Laos that's massive! It is situated on a bend of the Mekong river, which forms the border with Thailand at this point. Most historians believe Vientiane was an early Khmer settlement centered around a
Hindu temple. The romanized spelling is of French origin, and reflects the difficulty the French had in pronouncing the hard "ch" syllable of the Lao word; a common English-based spelling is "Viangchan", or occasionally "Wiangchan"...hooray for French corruption of Southeast Asia.
The day after we arrived, we went for a run on the dried riverbed of the Mekong, then set off sightseeing, taking in Wat Si Saket (the only temple in the city to survive the Siamese sacking of 1827), Haw Phra Kaew (a former temple turned museum of various buddhist knick-knacks that once housed a jade Buddha now found in Bangkok, Thailand), Patuxai (a sort of bland copy of
the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, ironically built to commemorate those who fought in the struggle for independence from France) and Pha That Luang (a Buddhist stupa with architecture that includes many references to Lao culture and identity, and so has become a symbol of Lao nationalism). Our guest house also happened to be right beside That Dam (Black Stupa translated directly), which many Laotians believe to be inhabited by a seven headed dragon who tried to protect them from the armies of Siam, who invaded in 1827.On a sad note, as we returned from our sightseeing sojourn, we came across the results of a horrific accident. Seeing a large group of people crowded around an intersection, we went to investigate and saw that a truck had run over someone on a bicycle. As events unfolded, it became obvious that the person was a tourist on a rented bike, especially difficult for us to see, for obvious reasons. We felt terrible for what he must have went through, for what his family would have to go through and what might have then happened to the driver of the truck that ran over him and his family, who rely on his income to live. That was definitely the most heartbreaking event we experienced on this trip and it is something we will never forget.
Back to the positive, you may recall from way back in our blog about Cambodia, we mentioned a company called Digital Divide Data (www.digitaldividedata.com). They are a digital data entry 
company with an eye to social development in Southeast Asia. After being so impressed with the Phnom Penh office, we decided to visit the branch in Vientiane and subsequently chose to spend the week there volunteering. We performed quality assurance work on a particular project and ended up learning a ton about MS Word, but that wasn't the point of volunteering, really. It felt great to be able to give feedback on the workings of their contracts and what we viewed as needs for the company. We made many new friends and have continued to spread the word about the positive impact that company is making, both to locals looking for work and other travelers looking for volunteering opportunities.
Other cool things we did in Vientiane include running in our first Hash House Harrier run (an international running group that combines exercise with socialization), going to work out at a really 
nice fitness facility that included plenty of free weights, a pool, massage and an herbal sauna all for about $6 each for the day and going to a couple of cool bars and seeing a pretty good concert including a band from Japan and an excellent house band. With all it's government buildings, the Mekong running along one side and the laid back feel, Vientiane gave us true feel of Ottawa. Maybe it was because we had a routine for about a week, but we loved having a feeling of being at home even though we were still so far away.
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