🇱🇦 Laos
Vientiane
Vientiane (population 820,000 metropolitan area; the capital and largest city of the Lao PDR (Lao People's Democratic Republic); on the Mekong River at the point where the river forms the border with Thailand (Nong Khai, Thailand is directly across the river)) is the smallest and least-visited capital city in Southeast Asia — a city of exceptional tranquillity, golden Buddhist temples, French colonial boulevards and riverside sunset cafés that sits in extraordinarily sharp contrast to the frenetic tourism economies of Bangkok (550 km south) and Hanoi (1,180 km east). Vientiane has been the capital of the Lao kingdom (the Lan Xang — "Kingdom of a Million Elephants") since 1560 when the King Setthathirath moved the capital from Luang Prabang to the Mekong riverside site, and it is during Setthathirath's reign (1548-1571) that the two most important monuments of the city were built or rebuilt: the Pha That Luang (the "Great Sacred Stupa" — the national symbol of Laos, rebuilt 1566 from the 3rd-century BCE Ashokan Buddhist stupa; the golden lotus-spire silhouette on every Lao kip banknote and government seal) and Wat Si Saket (though the current structure dates to 1818). The city also carries the physical legacy of the 20th century's most destructive air campaign: Laos is the most heavily bombed country per capita in history — 270 million cluster bomblets were dropped by US aircraft from 1964-1973 during the "Secret War" (the US bombing campaign against the Ho Chi Minh Trail, conducted without a Congressional declaration of war against a neutral country; approximately 80 million cluster submunitions remain unexploded in Laotian soil); the COPE Visitor Centre in Vientiane documents the ongoing UXO (unexploded ordnance) crisis and the work of prosthetics rehabilitation for victims.