Vientiane's pace is what visitors notice first - the streets that empty at midday, the businesses that close when owners decide to close, the urgency that exists elsewhere but not here. The pace that poverty enforces and culture embraces, the lifestyle that development would change and that development has not yet reached - Vientiane moves slowly because Laos moves slowly.

The pace is charm for visitors and frustration for those who need things done. The government offices that keep hours that approximations describe, the services that function when they function - Vientiane operates on Lao time, the concept that has meaning because the alternative doesn't exist here.

The Mekong River defines Vientiane's southern edge, the waterway that is also the border with Thailand across which Nong Khai's lights are visible at night. The riverfront promenade where Vientiane gathers at sunset, the restaurants that serve beer and food while the sun descends - the Mekong is where Vientiane's social life happens.

The river is also the connection that geography provides - the Thai markets that Lao shoppers access via friendship bridge, the goods that flow in both directions, the relationship that the river has shaped for centuries. The Mekong made Vientiane capital when the kingdom needed river access; the Mekong keeps Vientiane connected when roads don't suffice.

Vientiane's temples hold the Buddhist heritage that communism didn't destroy, the wats where monks still chant and where merit-making continues. The Wat Si Saket whose cloister holds thousands of Buddha images, the That Luang whose golden stupa is national symbol - the temples are what Vientiane was before colonizers arrived and what it remains beneath the overlay.

The temples are active monasteries, the monks who walk morning alms rounds collecting rice from residents who wake to give it. The Buddhism that pervades Lao life finds institutional expression in temples that dot every neighborhood. The temples are not tourist attractions primarily; they are community centers that tourists visit.

The French who administered Laos as part of Indochina left traces that survive their departure - the villas that line certain streets, the baguettes that bakeries sell, the coffee that French colonizers introduced and that Lao farmers now grow. The French legacy is architectural and culinary rather than linguistic; Lao, not French, is what Vientiane speaks.

The villas that French administrators occupied now house embassies and restaurants and guesthouses, the colonial architecture preserved because development hasn't replaced it. The legacy is picturesque - the shuttered windows, the garden walls, the proportions that tropical climate required - the France that exists in Vientiane better than in French cities that modernized.

Laos has been communist since 1975, the ideology that the Pathet Lao brought when they took power, that persists in single-party rule while market economics has replaced planned economics. The communist monuments that Vientiane displays - the Patuxai arch, the statues of leaders, the hammer and sickle on government buildings - are what ideology required.

The communism is real but relaxed - the restrictions that exist but are loosely enforced, the party that rules but doesn't intrude much on daily life. The communism explains why Vientiane developed slowly - the isolation that ideology brought, the investment that didn't come - but doesn't explain the culture that isolation preserved.