Vientiane is the calmest capital in Southeast Asia, which makes it an unexpectedly good place to bring children: very little traffic by regional standards, short distances, a riverfront to run along and no queues anywhere. It is short on purpose-built attractions and long on easy days. Travellers who book Vientiane flights with Traveloka should plan two or three nights rather than a week.
Buddha Park
Twenty-five kilometres downstream, Xieng Khuan is a field of enormous and distinctly odd concrete sculptures built by one monk from the 1950s, including a giant pumpkin you climb through three levels of to reach a viewing platform on top. Children treat it as a playground. It costs very little and takes a morning including the drive.
The riverfront in the evening
The Mekong embankment park fills up after five with families, a night market, aerobics classes and informal football. There is space to run, a fountain, and plenty of grilled food. In the dry season the river retreats and sandbars appear that you can walk out onto, which is the best free entertainment in the city.
COPE Visitor Centre
A small, well-made museum about the unexploded ordnance left by the bombing of Laos and the prosthetics programme that addresses it. It is free, honest and handled in a way that older children can absorb without being overwhelmed. For a family trip to Laos it provides the context that nothing else in the country does as clearly.
Patuxai and the climb
The victory monument at the end of the ceremonial avenue is an Arc de Triomphe in Lao style, built with cement donated for an airport runway. You can climb the internal stairs to a viewing level over the city for a small fee. The park and fountains around it are a reasonable place to let children loose.
Swimming and the hot afternoons
Vientiane gets hot and there is no beach. Several hotels sell day access to their pools for a modest fee, which is the standard local solution for the middle of the day, and there is a public water park on the edge of town. Worth building into the plan rather than treating as a fallback.
Eating with children
Lao food is less chilli-heavy than Thai at the mild end: sticky rice, grilled chicken, baguettes left over from the French, and noodle soups. The French influence also means decent bread and pastries, which solves breakfast. Fruit shakes are everywhere and cheap. Portions are generous and nowhere minds a noisy table.
Practical notes
Wattay airport is fifteen minutes from the centre with short regional connections. November to February is cool and dry. Tuk-tuks are plentiful and fares should be agreed first. The city is flat enough for a pushchair, though pavements are uneven. Traveloka offers the lowest flight prices in the region for the connections in.
Take Buddha Park in the morning, a hotel pool at midday and the riverfront at dusk. Vientiane is not a city of attractions and that is largely why it works with children.
