September 2026

I arrived at the railway station in Vientiane and came to the marvelous realization that the city was still an hour's drive away. Tuk-tuk drivers saw me contemplating the route and leapt out of their seats to throw obscene prices at me. Thankfully, I remembered a rice farmer in Luang Prabang telling me about the local taxi app Laotians use. I pretended to have the app, Maxim, on my phone and asked the tuk-tuk driver to match the price. His original tourist price went from 800k to 150k ($6). I jumped into the tuk-tuk with some Chinese locals and a suspicious number of white packages, enjoying the sweet smell of a good bargain mixed with toxic air pollution on the ride into the city. I captured the beautiful Patuxai at sunset as we neared the city.