Our guide and driver will pick you up from your hotel in Vientiane and drive through the small, yet charming centre to see the highlights of the Laotian capital. Our first stop will be made at the Wat Sisaket, the oldest monastery in Vientiane, built in 1818. This temple has survived in its original form as where all other temples in Vientiane have gone through extensive renovations. Inside the main hall, and along the walls of the courtyard surrounding it, a total of 6,840 Buddha images rest in small niches or on shelves, next to its remarkable frescoes.

Continue to nearby Ho Phra Keo, the former Royal temple, now a Museum of Buddhist art and sculpture. The building had housed the Emerald Buddha until it was taken to Bangkok following a skirmish with the Lao in 1778. It still displays some of the finest Buddha sculptures found in the country. An original jar of the world-renowned Plain of Jars can be found as well on the compounds of this temple complex besides special displays of various artefacts and manuscripts.

The That Luang with its golden stupa in the characteristic banana flower shape is the most revered shrine in Laos and of course, cannot be missed. Laos’ national symbol has a central structure that is 45 meters tall and echoes the curving lines of an elongated lotus bud, the original stupa, said to contain a relic of the Lord Buddha.