Day 9 – September 26 –Luang Prabang to Vientiane

We slept in this morning. Yes, after a week of waking up around 6 or 7 am and going straight from trains into cities or clucking chicken camps to vertical mountain marches, we gave ourselves a pass and slept in until 9am. We packed, got all of our stuff ready, and checked out, leaving our backpacks at the hotel until our flight at 7pm. We were going to have a full day in the city until we left for Vientiane.

Today was pretty chill. We continued to figure out our next couple of moves, sitting in a small café just past the Scandinavian Bakery which had free wifi. They also had an espresso frappe which was fantastic. After 8 days of not having anything really cold and shunning ice containing beverages, I slipped and went for the frappe. Boy, am I happy I did. It was refreshing beyond imagination. We confirmed flight prices before we actually bought them at a travel agent across the street. Hey, we are both former analysts, we know how to do a comp analysis. After fixing our remaining flights and hotels, we returned to Kopnoi, the fairtrade store. I bought a set of tiles which were hand painted to make a single painting. I thought they were very cool. When, who walked in, but Fofie. She asked me about the picture and where I wanted to ship it (Mom and Dad, it’s coming your way… thanks!). When I said LA, she said, wow, I lived there! I proceeded to remind her that she told me her life story (Quebecois, NY, LA – Westchester, late husband, Laos, grandkid) and that I was in a hurry to catch my flight. I wouldn’t be surprised if the tiles didn’t get to LA. Oh well, we will see soon enough, no?

We took a ride to the airport and got to Vientiane, no issues. We stayed at the Hotel Calao, a sister to our hotel in LP. It was more of a business hotel, but in a very strange area. Nowhere near a business district. In fact, we had to turn off the main road, the wrong way down a one-way dirt road to get there. It was quite humorous. We checked in and went directly to dinner. There was a beer garden down the street called Three Stars. It was awesome. Full of kids between 16 and 28. Absolutely packed at 10:00 pm. We got the menu, which was 100% in Laos. I mean, we had no clue what was going on, so we decided to pick number 7. We assumed it was out lucky number. After 15 minutes of high anticipation, a sizzling plate of bbq beef, onions and greens came out. IT WAS AWESOME! To be fair, we were more excited that we pointed to a random combination of squiggly lines on a piece of paper and got something edible. Hell, we were excited it was food. Who knows, we could have been ordering from an embroidery home catalogue. After careful consideration, we decided that we knew who the 18 year olds were across from us. It was the stars of Laos Hills, a very popular Lao take on the popular mTV USA show. No, kidding, but the girls were wearing faux-fur vests in 38 degree heat. They must of thought of themselves as hot. We finished our Beer Laos, very proud of our local beer garden experience. We gave our waiter a big tip, as he had dealt well with some clueless Americans. His eyes widened in surprise, and we chuckled to ourselves a bit. We bet big and took the house for all it was worth, so we had to throw a chip to the dealer, right? I had the best time. Tomorrow is our tourist Vientiane day. See you soon.