Vientiane is the capital city of Laos. It sits on the Mekong River, in the middle of the country, right on the border with Thailand — you can stand on one bank and see the other country. It is the biggest city in Laos, but by the standards of Asian capitals it is small and quiet: under a million people, low buildings, wide slow streets, temples and French-era houses mixed together. Because Laos was ruled by France for about sixty years, a lot of the old city looks French, and there is even an arch in the middle of town that people compare to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. In English the name is a place name, so we write it with a big V and use no 'the': 'She lives in Vientiane.' Say it roughly VYEN-tyan or vee-en-TYAN — English speakers do not agree on this, and both are accepted. One thing worth knowing: 'Vientiane' is the French spelling of the Lao name, and Lao people say something closer to 'Wiang Chan', which means something like 'city of the moon' or 'city of sandalwood' — scholars are not sure which. So the English name and the local name are further apart than they look.