Images shot with the classic F.Zuiko 38mm f1.8
It’s funny sometimes listening to people’s different ideas and perceptions of different places, and how they differ in comparison to your own experiences.
My memories of Laos are that it was one of my very favourite places I’d ever been after going there in November 2006. Arguably the zenith of that round-the-world trip, it was a ten day period where everything aligned.
Our little group of travellers, mostly picked up in Vietnam, had swollen to double figures as we (completely fortuitously) arrived in a bustling Vientiane just in time for the country’s biggest festival, Boun That Luang, which takes place at and around the golden stupa you see in these first images here.
These images however are from 2014, when I found myself returning.
And it’s now 2026 as I’m, for some reason, revisiting this post. Originally it was a 2014 look back at the 2006 memories of Laos.
But I can now look back at the 2014 ones too. So let’s do that.
Contents
The original memories of Laos
The first time I went to Laos was one of the very best times I’ve had in my life. Ten days spent across three different places on small part of the Banana Pancake Trail, and all three of them with their own special thing.
The big festival season Vientiane, the golden a.k.a. reckless age of tubing in Vang Vieng, and a weird nocturnal existence in sleepy Luang Prabang are things I will never forget.
There are too many stories to tell here. All I will say is, I don’t know how much longer I could have stayed.
It was all brilliant but at the same time, for the sake of my mental and physical health, I think ten days was definitely enough.
Returning to Vientiane in 2014
When I revisited in 2014, I was living in Chiang Mai and had to do a visa run. It seemed like for a lot of people in town at the time, Vientiane was an uninteresting little place where you went for a new visa and got back out again asap.
I heard at least one person say they hate the place. Most are a little less harsh, more like seeing going there as a simple chore.
Based on the memories of my time there in 2006, I found it hard to empathise.
So when the time came that I had to do the same visa run, I decided to stick around for a few days and see if any of the old magic remained.
Bearing in mind the last time I was there was the festival season, I must admit the place seemed pretty dead the second time around. I had Vientiane down as a busy little town, but maybe they were right.
Regardless, I got myself a bicycle for the day and took my F.Zuiko 38mm f1.8 off to the iconic golden stupa at Pha That Luang – the place of the festival the last time I was there – in the hope of finding some memories.
In stark contrast to how I remembered the bustling scenes of the festival years before though, the place was deserted. And closed. I walked around it before heading over to the temple next door and its big reclining buddha.
Vientiane did lend itself very well to manual focus photography. The slow pace of everything (really, everything) just seemed to fit with shooting with the vintage prime lens.
Hopping back onto my bicycle, I took a leisurely ride to my next location: the Patuxai Victory Monument. Often called the Arc de Triomphe of Laos, it is actually dedicated to the memory of those who fought for independence from France.
Built between 1957-1968, it rises above a traffic intersection, giving decent views over what is admittedly not the most enthralling city to look out upon.
The long, straight boulevard did remind me a bit of seeing the Champs-Elysees from the real Arc de Triomphe, though.
A very little bit.
Another hive of activity from that glorious first visit had been the area around the national stadium. I remember seeing two football games there, and having an impromptu game ourselves on the pitch.
I also remember lazing around the open air swimming pool across the road, and I barely remember going to the bowling alley after leaving a nightclub and almost breaking my ankle trying to kick a ball at the pins.
I remember wasting hours at a shooting range behind one of the stands too, spending money on bullets and beer. When I went back in 2014, I was told this place was closed down, and had been for a while.
Now it’s 2026 and I can see on Google Maps that open air swimming pool I mentioned is like the shooting range, i.e. also now gone.
I can also see the stadium is being renovated, which means it will never again look the way I experienced it.
In 2014 however, the stadium was very empty. That meant nobody was there to stop me wandering in and taking a few shots, though.
One view I completely missed during my first visit to Vientiane was the riverside.
I stayed in a guesthouse in the area but never actually walked the ten minutes to the waterfront.
When I went back in 2014, I made sure I checked it out.
It was peaceful and serene, and I remember it being just the sort of space I needed to think about Vientiane and what that 2006 visit meant to me.
What’s nice is that it’s now longer since the 2014 visit than it was between then and the 2006 one, and I have two sets of memories of Laos.
All that’s left to do now is tie them up in a way that keeps them separate too.
Old and even older memories of Laos
They say never go back, but in the case of Vientiane, I’m glad I did.
In 2014, I thought about my time there in 2006, and the people I had shared it with. I wrote here then, in 2014, that I would go back there, 2006, in a heartbeat.
Now in 2026, I can think about both 2006 and 2014, and my thinking has changed.
2006, being younger and with a group of travelling buddies, was a lot more fun than 2014.
2014, being solo and a little older and wiser, a lot more chilled.
I’m so glad I had both experiences. But I have no desire to go back to either of them at all. On paper, my life now is a lot more boring then either of those times. Especially the first one.
While it’s great to remember the good times, I don’t think it’s healthy to dwell on them. If the past is better than the present, I think we’re doing something wrong.
We can’t forget the good times, and we never want to forget the great times, but the most important thing is to make sure the best times are always yet to come.
For now though, thankfully one thing at least in Vientiane remains constant: the curry at Nazim is still glorious.
If you enjoyed this hark back to some memories of Laos and want to read more posts about images shot on a mirrorless camera with vintage lenses, why not have a look at some of these too:
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Beautiful photography
Thank you. Vientiane is a beautiful place.