Lazy Day

Sunday, Aug. 15, 2010--Vientiane

Being Sunday, the morning was quiet. When I went out at 10:00, not many people were stirring. I had already decided to try something different for my first meal of the day. I've had sandwiches every day until now. Today, I searched for a place I saw yesterday and found it. They serve something that is like a cross between spring rolls and dumplings. The look like spring rolls, because they are rolled. But they are made with a rice noodle that is thicker and more tender than a spring roll wrapper. The filling is a mixture of ground meat and vegetables. On top of these were placed slices of pork loaf and crispy fried slices of onions and garlic. All of this was served with a spicy peanut sauce that was wonderful.

I needed to get information about the bus to Nong Khai in Thailand where I will go when I leave here on Wednesday or Thursday, so I walked to the bus station. I got the times and the price for the bus. I have to plan. The currency here cannot be exchanged back to dollars or baht. Therefore, I must try to adjust my spending so that I am using my last kip (local money) to pay for the bus and for the fee I have to pay to exit the country at their customs/immigration control point.

While there, I looked inside a mall nearby. It was similar to the one I had seen before--lots of small, individually-owned stalls. Many of them were gold shops, since people in Lao save their money by buying gold jewelry and then selling it again by the weight when they need money for something else. While in the mall, I explored their food court, since it had been recommended to me by Charles at dinner last night.

Laos lacks chain stores and has less than a handful of chain restaurants. For some reason, name-brands just do not exist here in terms of retailing. There are 3 chain restaurants, but two of them are just regional ones--The Pizza Company, a Thai company with pizzas that look horrible, and Swenson's, the ice cream store chain that now exits only here in Asia, I think. There is a small KFC which is the most popular fast food chain company in all of Asia. But this one only seats 24 people and seldom has more than 6-8 people in it due to the high costs for their products.

I walked back to the area around my hotel and went to a wat to sit and read. In time, I was approached by 3 monks. They were doing their English homework for tomorrow and asked if I could help them. They were putting it into a Word document, so I showed them how they could do it in columns and could print it front-and-back to save paper. Then I helped them practice using the vocabulary in conversational questions. They were nice young men who smiled with their eyes as well as their mouths. So it was fun to help them.

At dinner, I sat with two other men who sell Kuboto farm equipment. One is the local salesman, and the other is the regional manager who spends a week here each month and has a territory that covers Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Their business is doing well. I had read in a newspaper in Thailand that the number of water buffalo is decreasing in the country because farmers are buying mechanical equipment to help them rather than using buffaloes any longer. I had fried rice for my meal.

The movie selection on HBO, Cinemax, and Star Movies is horrible. I check each day to see if there is a film I might want to watch in the evening. Many nights there is nothing worth seeing. Therefore, I read, update my blog, watch the news on TV, etc., to pass the time.