Buddhist Monks with camera phones, Vientiane, Laos

These monks were also tourists and they had come to visit their capital city and Laos' centre of Buddhism. They approached me and we spoke for a while. They're English was good. Just as we were about to part ways, they asked if they could have a photo of me (isn't it weird, I'm normally photographing the monks?). After the first round, I took some shots of them photographing me.

More about our Vientiane visit at newdigate.me/2010/03/vientiane-capital-of-laos/



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Blog: Many Moon Honeymoon
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Taken on: 9th January, 2010. Copyright: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License - See Many Moon Honeymoon's page of Flickr

Read more about Vientiane

The Lao capital of Vientiane sits on the northern bank of the Mekong River facing across to the even sleepier Thai town of Sri Chiang Mai. For many visitors, Vientiane provides the first taste of Lao food, culture and hospitality, and it does not disappoint on any count.

Actually pronounced Wiang Jan and translated as City of Sandalwood, the modern name of Vientiane comes courtesy of a bastardised French transliteration. Wiang actually means "fort" (City of Sandalwood sounds better than Fort... ) but by all accounts it mustn't have been much of a stronghold, as the original city was overrun on a number of occasions by the Burmese and Chinese, and absolutely flattened by the Siamese (Thais) in 1828, after which the city was abandoned and left to the jungle.

This is one reason why many of the wats in the city are of a relatively young age, and if the road layout ... Read our complete Vientiane travel guide

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