Walking Vientiane (Laos)

A squalid and sweet city corrupted by sordid lascivious men

The sun in Vientiane is unrelenting, a scalding orb that cooks everything, including the Mekong, a broad slow moving muddy river that shapes the city, turning the air almost as glutinous and wet as its marshy banks.

Unlike in Hanoi, or Jakarta, there is little protection from its ferocity, no kampongs of narrow shaded alleys, few colonial buildings smartly designed for life without AC, only a smattering of groves of trees to rest under. Vientiane is a small (800,000 people) spread out city, and once the sun has been up for a few hours, street life, beyond the pulse of mopeds, cars, and bikes, slows down to people lounging under whatever shade they can find, only to resume again an hour before sunset, its pace quickening the further the sun sinks, the cooler the air becomes, until by nine p.m. it reaches a level that can finally be called bustling.

Bustling is travel writers favorite euphemism for crowded squalid impoverished cities, and Vientiane does indeed bustle, but only momentarily when the sun doesn’t rule, and even then it’s confined to a few blocks, mostly along the river.