Sunday, Aug. 29, 2010--Bangkok
Lumphini Park is near my hotel. I took my book and went there early this morning. Some young men were playing basketball. Many people were jogging, especially since it was cloudy making the weather rather comfortable. Parents had brought their children to the playground. I sat on a bench away from the crowds and read for about two hours.
After returning to the hotel for a short nap, I decided to make a final trip to the Silom Sauna, a local sauna I normally visit each time I am in Bangkok. It is only about a 40-minute walk from my hotel--closer than it was from the hotel where I previously stayed. It was a bit quieter than normally on a Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, no one spoke to me. I ate the food that is served (hot green lentil soup, fresh watermelon and pineapple with a sugar-pepper mixture for dipping it, and a bowl of dark gelatin). I spent time in both the dry and the steam saunas. I watched Thai boxing on the TV. It was a nice way to pass three hours.
On the way back to the hotel, I passed a western man who paused to look at the map at a metro station. I asked if he was trying to find some place in particular. He explained that he was spending the afternoon trying to find an apartment to rent and that they were asking ridiculous prices. Part of his problem is that he was looking in an area that is near many embassies, so they are used to westerners wanting fancy, expensive places to stay and not worrying about the price since their government will pay. He complained that he found one place for 7000 baht (about $220) that he could afford, but it was just a bed, a coffee table, two chairs, a bath, and a sink. There wasn't even a refrigerator. We didn't talk long, but his plan is to rent an apartment here and find a job. I don't know what kind of job he hopes to get. And I wonder how he will be able to live here considering the visa requirements. But I just moved on and left him to it.
Monday, Aug. 30, 2010--Bangkok
After eating my breakfast of muesli in the room, I returned to Lumphini Park to read this morning. There were two bands in the park today--one consisting of elementary school students and another consisting of middle school students. They were both brass bands. I'm not sure why they were rehearsing in the park unless it was to avoid bothering neighbors or classes if they had done so at their campus.
There's sad news today about foreign cinema. First, in the Houston Chronicle, there is an article saying that the Angelika Cinema has closed. That leaves Houston with only one 3-screen cinema that specializes completely in foreign and independent cinema. Then when I walked to the Siam Square area to see what films are showing here right now, I faced two more sad circumstances. First, the Siam Cinema which was a old, large cinema with over 800 seats and was one of 5 screens operated by Apex in three cinemas specializing in foreign and independent films was gone. It was burned in the protests/riots this summer. And second, of the remaining 4 screens, only one is showing a foreign film. All the other screens are showing popular American films. How sad.
The film I would like to see was not scheduled until 14:45, so I decided to wait and see it tomorrow. I went to the food halls at the Siam Paragon Mall. I sampled a few specialty products at the Gourmet Market. Then I went to Burger King and ate a barbecue beef sandwich.
I'm really craving certain foods. During the last 4 months, all my meals except for maybe 6 or 7 have been Asian foods. When I get home, I am looking forward to things such as these: cheeses, salami, sandwiches of all kinds, pizza, Mexican food, potatoes, beef, etc.
I finished reading Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky today. It's an interesting story and well written. My only complaint is that it, like many novels from the 1800s, delves too much into philosophy. It distracts from the story. I gave the book 3 stars out of 4.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Returning to Bangkok
Friday, Aug. 27, 2010--Korat
The Internet service at the hotel went off about 16:30 yesterday and didn't return until 16:00 today. It was frustrating not being able to get online. I spent the morning sitting in the open-air lobby of the hotel reading. I walked to the nearby morning market and bought some pastries for my breakfast.
Since I couldn't use the computer and needed to check information about traveling tomorrow, I decided to take the computer to the hotel where I stayed before. Their wifi passward was inside the computer already. That's when I discovered that the problem with the service was city-wide and not just in the neighborhood of my apartment complex. The cyber cafes along the way were closed, and the computer could not connect when I turned it on next door to the former hotel. Due to that, I decided to walk to the train station to check on their schedules. Although the trains are slow, the station in Bangkok is a better location to arrive than the bus station. Unfortunately, there were only two trains scheduled. The one around 8:30 is a third-class only train with no seat reservations making it uncertain whether I could sit or not. The one at 10:30 is the "express" train" which still takes over 4 hours to get to Bangkok while costing almost twice the price of bus service. I decided that a bus would be the best way to go due to the fact that the time involved would be shorter than any of the trains (about half the time of the third-class train) and its cost would be cheaper in relation to the express train.
While eating Phad Thai at a street stall, I accidentally got a dried red pepper flake in my right eye. Wow, did it burn!! I couldn't get the flake out of my eye, so I just had to continue eating with the eye watering until the flake lost its power. I was sharing a small table with a local man who seemed pleased to see me add the pepper to the dish, since most Thai people believe that westerners do not appreciate the fact that their food should normally be spicy.
Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010--Korat to Bangkok
I've been going to bed early and getting up early lately. This morning, I was up by 6:15. That further supported my decision I had made to take the bus rather than the train. I bathed, packed, and walked to the bus station where I got a VIP bus (hot chocolate, water, and breakfast buns) that departed at 7:40.
The main reason that the train station is more convenient than the bus station is Bangkok is that an underground metro station is located at the train station. With the bus station, both the underground metro and the sky train have services, but they are one major road away. It was necessary to climb an overhead crosswalk with the luggage and go over and down again. Then I had to walk on the edge of the street until I could cross under an expressway that blocked the route. Finally, I had to go through two parts of a park. Once there, however, the Sky Train took me to the street where my hotel is located. I just had to walk the equivalent of about six blocks to get to it.
The Sawasdee Lang Suan is a new hotel for me. It is in a good location. The shops and restaurants near it are quite elegant. There are many embassies in the area; the US Embassy is nearby on the next major street going eastward. The room is fine, although I've always disliked dark brownish-red carpeting which it has; it just seems to be an effort to cover up dirtiness. The bed is good, and the location is quiet. There is a built-in glass desk for me to use the computer with the free wifi. I miss the Mandarin where I have stayed before and the personnel, but this hotel has more TV channels and the wifi for about half the price of the Mandarin. I'll miss the good breakfast at the Mandarin, since I have none here, but getting breakfast and doing without wifi is not worth the extra $20 per night.
I am closer to the shopping district of Bangkok at this hotel than I was at the Mandarin, but I am just as far from the PART of the shopping district that I prefer. I walked to there to search for something to eat and to buy some things to keep in the room. Unfortunately, it was about 16:00 and the street stalls that had been up for the daytime were closing and the ones for the evening were not yet opening. I ended up having a McSpicy chicken sandwich and fries at McDonald's.
I was surprised to see Central Plaza Mall on this end of the shopping district completely destroyed. When I was here before, I saw that the Siam Discovery Center had been damaged and was being rebuilt. But seeing Central Plaza Mall indicates that the problems with the demonstrations and riots this spring was worse than the publicity indicated. It's possible to see the caved-in roof, bullet holes in the glass, etc. This was the second largest shopping mall in Asia and was bigger than Mall of the Americas. News coverage that I saw did not make the damages to the city seem as bad as it was. Maybe that is because the government here is military-backed and was censoring what could go out.
I stopped at a supermarket after going to McDonald's and bought some supplies for the room--muesli and milk for my breakfasts and cookies and chips for a snack on rainy days. Then I stayed inside in the evening.
The Internet service at the hotel went off about 16:30 yesterday and didn't return until 16:00 today. It was frustrating not being able to get online. I spent the morning sitting in the open-air lobby of the hotel reading. I walked to the nearby morning market and bought some pastries for my breakfast.
Since I couldn't use the computer and needed to check information about traveling tomorrow, I decided to take the computer to the hotel where I stayed before. Their wifi passward was inside the computer already. That's when I discovered that the problem with the service was city-wide and not just in the neighborhood of my apartment complex. The cyber cafes along the way were closed, and the computer could not connect when I turned it on next door to the former hotel. Due to that, I decided to walk to the train station to check on their schedules. Although the trains are slow, the station in Bangkok is a better location to arrive than the bus station. Unfortunately, there were only two trains scheduled. The one around 8:30 is a third-class only train with no seat reservations making it uncertain whether I could sit or not. The one at 10:30 is the "express" train" which still takes over 4 hours to get to Bangkok while costing almost twice the price of bus service. I decided that a bus would be the best way to go due to the fact that the time involved would be shorter than any of the trains (about half the time of the third-class train) and its cost would be cheaper in relation to the express train.
While eating Phad Thai at a street stall, I accidentally got a dried red pepper flake in my right eye. Wow, did it burn!! I couldn't get the flake out of my eye, so I just had to continue eating with the eye watering until the flake lost its power. I was sharing a small table with a local man who seemed pleased to see me add the pepper to the dish, since most Thai people believe that westerners do not appreciate the fact that their food should normally be spicy.
Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010--Korat to Bangkok
I've been going to bed early and getting up early lately. This morning, I was up by 6:15. That further supported my decision I had made to take the bus rather than the train. I bathed, packed, and walked to the bus station where I got a VIP bus (hot chocolate, water, and breakfast buns) that departed at 7:40.
The main reason that the train station is more convenient than the bus station is Bangkok is that an underground metro station is located at the train station. With the bus station, both the underground metro and the sky train have services, but they are one major road away. It was necessary to climb an overhead crosswalk with the luggage and go over and down again. Then I had to walk on the edge of the street until I could cross under an expressway that blocked the route. Finally, I had to go through two parts of a park. Once there, however, the Sky Train took me to the street where my hotel is located. I just had to walk the equivalent of about six blocks to get to it.
The Sawasdee Lang Suan is a new hotel for me. It is in a good location. The shops and restaurants near it are quite elegant. There are many embassies in the area; the US Embassy is nearby on the next major street going eastward. The room is fine, although I've always disliked dark brownish-red carpeting which it has; it just seems to be an effort to cover up dirtiness. The bed is good, and the location is quiet. There is a built-in glass desk for me to use the computer with the free wifi. I miss the Mandarin where I have stayed before and the personnel, but this hotel has more TV channels and the wifi for about half the price of the Mandarin. I'll miss the good breakfast at the Mandarin, since I have none here, but getting breakfast and doing without wifi is not worth the extra $20 per night.
I am closer to the shopping district of Bangkok at this hotel than I was at the Mandarin, but I am just as far from the PART of the shopping district that I prefer. I walked to there to search for something to eat and to buy some things to keep in the room. Unfortunately, it was about 16:00 and the street stalls that had been up for the daytime were closing and the ones for the evening were not yet opening. I ended up having a McSpicy chicken sandwich and fries at McDonald's.
I was surprised to see Central Plaza Mall on this end of the shopping district completely destroyed. When I was here before, I saw that the Siam Discovery Center had been damaged and was being rebuilt. But seeing Central Plaza Mall indicates that the problems with the demonstrations and riots this spring was worse than the publicity indicated. It's possible to see the caved-in roof, bullet holes in the glass, etc. This was the second largest shopping mall in Asia and was bigger than Mall of the Americas. News coverage that I saw did not make the damages to the city seem as bad as it was. Maybe that is because the government here is military-backed and was censoring what could go out.
I stopped at a supermarket after going to McDonald's and bought some supplies for the room--muesli and milk for my breakfasts and cookies and chips for a snack on rainy days. Then I stayed inside in the evening.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Working My Way Back toward Bangkok
Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2010—Khon Kaen
After rains last night, this morning is cool and cloudy. The hotel serves a free simple breakfast—corn flakes, toast, butter, jam, coffee and tea. I ate that in the open-air lobby downstairs. I also read the Bangkok Post, one of the two local English language newspapers, which they have available there. Then I went to explore the town some more.
There is a very nice shrine complex in town. It was crowded with people bringing food offerings. Today must be a religious holiday. The foods were numerous and fancy. Also, everyone all over town is burning paper in pots. This comes from an old tradition of burning money to show appreciation for their prosperity, but today they use scrap paper as a stand-in for real money. Is that because they are not as prosperous or because they are less thankful?
The city has a very nice market. It’s large and in a clean, organized building. People were shopping for everything there. I considered buying flowers to take back to my hotel room, but I didn’t plan to return soon, and I didn’t want to carry them.
I passed a specialty food store with Thai gourmet items for sale and went inside. I finally got an answer to one of the questions I’ve had. The sandwiches I have been buying all have a fluffy, dry, stringy product placed along the outer edge. It looks a bit like beige fiberglass. Now I know it is shredded pork. While there, I bought a package of the peanut-sesame seed brittle which is one of my favorite snack foods in this area. It’s like peanut brittle at home except for two differences: They use peanut halves so that the brittle can be very thin and more easy to bite, and they add toasted sesame seeds which makes the flavor nicer. Here is a link to a recipe for it.
On my way back to the hotel, I stopped at the mall again. I didn’t feel like having Thai food, so I went to McDonald’s for a late lunch. It’s my least favorite burger place, but it’s the only choice here. I ordered a chicken sandwich. Unfortunately, I had forgotten about having the same food item in China on this trip until I bit into it. It’s a compressed chicken item, so it is almost impossible to bite. One has to bite into it and pull hard. Eventually, long strands of chicken shred away from the patty so that they can be chewed and swallowed. The fries were much better than the chicken sandwich.
The rest of the day was spent in the room reading, on the computer, and watching TV.
Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010—Khon Kaen
The owner of the hotel is Irish and is married to a beautiful, elegant Thai woman who looks as if she could have been a beauty pageant contestant. Both of them have talked to me off and on. When he learned about my job background, he told me there was an American professor from San Diego staying at the hotel, too, who is here for some work. Well, he was downstairs for breakfast at the same time that I was this morning, so we got to meet and visit.
Instead of a professor, he is a doctoral student from the University of San Diego, California, in the field of anthropology. He was here earlier for 30 months to do field research on his dissertation related to community action groups that are working to improve life for small villages. He is back now for some follow-up work as he writes the last three chapters of his dissertation. We chatted for about an hour.
Today I just stayed in the neighborhood. I walked up the street to find a place for lunch. It was a local, open-air restaurant beside a large auto repair shop. Most of the diners worked at the repair shop. Neither the owner nor her customers was used to foreigners eating there. They were all smiling and commenting. I just ordered what I saw her cooking—a stir fry with chicken and green vegetables served over rice.
Most of the afternoon was spent doing planning on the computer. I will leave tomorrow.
Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010—Khon Kaen to Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat)
This was a travel day and the next-to-last leg of the gradual trip back to Bangkok. I returned to Nakhon Ratchasima (also called Korat—a city with a nickname!). It was my first stop when I left Bangkok almost two months ago. I remember thinking and writing at the time about how poor the city is. Well, the same thought came back today. This has to be the poorest city I have visited. It just shows in the dress and general appearance of the people. I think they must be poorer than the people anywhere I went in Laos, too.
It was already hot when I left the hotel for the bus station at 7:45. Fortunately, it was only about a mile away. The next bus wasn’t leaving for about 45 minutes, so I pulled out my book and began reading.
The bus was a “VIP” bus. In this part of the world, VIP is used often. Apparently everyone wants to think or pretend he is a VIP. What it means in terms of bus riding is that the bus is fairly new and has air conditioning, the rider is given a bottle of water and a small package of cookies, no stops are made between stations to pick up or let off passengers, and the ticket price is about 50-100% higher.
It took about 4 hours for the trip. I read part of the way, but the bus was bouncing quite a bit which made it difficult to do so. I napped for part of the time. Since it was 13:45 when we arrived, it was HOT walking to the apartment building where I am staying.
I am disappointed in the apartment building. I thought it would be nicer than it is. It is okay, but a bit warn. The place I stayed here before was nicer and just a bit more in price. Also, I am having trouble with the wifi here; I was online for about 2 1/2 hours, but I have not been able to get online since. I chose the apartment for two reasons: to have a different experience and to be closer to the train station for going to Bangkok. I may go see if a room is available at the Sansabai where I stayed before if I cannot get back online here tomorrow morning.
As I went out to find a place for dinner, I met an Australian man and his new Thai bridge downstairs. They have been here for two months. He is probably about my age. She looks to be around 35. He told me there are several western men who meet at a bar across the street on Fridays to drink and visit. He and his wife plan to spend six months here and six months in Australia each year. Her family has a farm just outside of town.
I had a dish that is made from broad, homemade noodles in gravy for dinner. It included pork and the same green vegetable that is in most Thai dishes. The green vegetable is interesting. It is a bit like spinach with leaves and stems. It isn’t easy to chew. The stems are crunchy, and the leaves are a bit rubbery. The only processing that takes place is what is done with the teeth while chewing it. Whatever form one leaves it in when swallowing it is the form that it has when it comes out later. It appears to be a very good roughage material for eating. I’m not sure if any nutrients come from it since the stomach doesn’t seem to have an effect on it at all.
I’ve had bug fears recently on this trip. All the newspapers are running stories about bed bugs. There were TWO stories in one major newspaper on the same day this week! Of course, one of the warnings is that bed bugs are increasingly a problem due to increased international travel. Sleeping in maybe 35-40 hotels on each of my trips, my chances of encountering them are increased. I did have bed bugs in a hotel in Cochin, India, a few years ago In fact, I had them there twice, since I forgot about them and returned to the same hotel a couple of years later. It was horrible trying to sleep. On this trip, my bugs have been imaginary due to reading the articles. Once, earlier in the trip, I imagined that I had gotten head lice. My scalp gets itchy if I use certain shampoos. Normally it is fine, but I must have gotten a hotel shampoo that gave me the reaction. I switched to my own shampoo, but it takes about 3 days for the itch to go away. So for three days I kept thinking I felt lice moving around up there. I just knew I had gotten them from either sitting next to someone on the bus or from having a photo taken with a local person who had leaned his head toward mine. However, the itch went away. And lice NEVER go away without treatment; therefore, it was all my imagination. A couple of times since reading the recent stories, I have felt as if I was being bitten in bed and have gotten up to inspect. Each time it has been a false alarm—just the usual occasional itchy spot due to dry skin. Hope I make it home safely without any bed bugs hitching a ride in my luggage which is one way the articles all say they travel.
After rains last night, this morning is cool and cloudy. The hotel serves a free simple breakfast—corn flakes, toast, butter, jam, coffee and tea. I ate that in the open-air lobby downstairs. I also read the Bangkok Post, one of the two local English language newspapers, which they have available there. Then I went to explore the town some more.
There is a very nice shrine complex in town. It was crowded with people bringing food offerings. Today must be a religious holiday. The foods were numerous and fancy. Also, everyone all over town is burning paper in pots. This comes from an old tradition of burning money to show appreciation for their prosperity, but today they use scrap paper as a stand-in for real money. Is that because they are not as prosperous or because they are less thankful?
The city has a very nice market. It’s large and in a clean, organized building. People were shopping for everything there. I considered buying flowers to take back to my hotel room, but I didn’t plan to return soon, and I didn’t want to carry them.
I passed a specialty food store with Thai gourmet items for sale and went inside. I finally got an answer to one of the questions I’ve had. The sandwiches I have been buying all have a fluffy, dry, stringy product placed along the outer edge. It looks a bit like beige fiberglass. Now I know it is shredded pork. While there, I bought a package of the peanut-sesame seed brittle which is one of my favorite snack foods in this area. It’s like peanut brittle at home except for two differences: They use peanut halves so that the brittle can be very thin and more easy to bite, and they add toasted sesame seeds which makes the flavor nicer. Here is a link to a recipe for it.
On my way back to the hotel, I stopped at the mall again. I didn’t feel like having Thai food, so I went to McDonald’s for a late lunch. It’s my least favorite burger place, but it’s the only choice here. I ordered a chicken sandwich. Unfortunately, I had forgotten about having the same food item in China on this trip until I bit into it. It’s a compressed chicken item, so it is almost impossible to bite. One has to bite into it and pull hard. Eventually, long strands of chicken shred away from the patty so that they can be chewed and swallowed. The fries were much better than the chicken sandwich.
The rest of the day was spent in the room reading, on the computer, and watching TV.
Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010—Khon Kaen
The owner of the hotel is Irish and is married to a beautiful, elegant Thai woman who looks as if she could have been a beauty pageant contestant. Both of them have talked to me off and on. When he learned about my job background, he told me there was an American professor from San Diego staying at the hotel, too, who is here for some work. Well, he was downstairs for breakfast at the same time that I was this morning, so we got to meet and visit.
Instead of a professor, he is a doctoral student from the University of San Diego, California, in the field of anthropology. He was here earlier for 30 months to do field research on his dissertation related to community action groups that are working to improve life for small villages. He is back now for some follow-up work as he writes the last three chapters of his dissertation. We chatted for about an hour.
Today I just stayed in the neighborhood. I walked up the street to find a place for lunch. It was a local, open-air restaurant beside a large auto repair shop. Most of the diners worked at the repair shop. Neither the owner nor her customers was used to foreigners eating there. They were all smiling and commenting. I just ordered what I saw her cooking—a stir fry with chicken and green vegetables served over rice.
Most of the afternoon was spent doing planning on the computer. I will leave tomorrow.
Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010—Khon Kaen to Nakhon Ratchasima (Korat)
This was a travel day and the next-to-last leg of the gradual trip back to Bangkok. I returned to Nakhon Ratchasima (also called Korat—a city with a nickname!). It was my first stop when I left Bangkok almost two months ago. I remember thinking and writing at the time about how poor the city is. Well, the same thought came back today. This has to be the poorest city I have visited. It just shows in the dress and general appearance of the people. I think they must be poorer than the people anywhere I went in Laos, too.
It was already hot when I left the hotel for the bus station at 7:45. Fortunately, it was only about a mile away. The next bus wasn’t leaving for about 45 minutes, so I pulled out my book and began reading.
The bus was a “VIP” bus. In this part of the world, VIP is used often. Apparently everyone wants to think or pretend he is a VIP. What it means in terms of bus riding is that the bus is fairly new and has air conditioning, the rider is given a bottle of water and a small package of cookies, no stops are made between stations to pick up or let off passengers, and the ticket price is about 50-100% higher.
It took about 4 hours for the trip. I read part of the way, but the bus was bouncing quite a bit which made it difficult to do so. I napped for part of the time. Since it was 13:45 when we arrived, it was HOT walking to the apartment building where I am staying.
I am disappointed in the apartment building. I thought it would be nicer than it is. It is okay, but a bit warn. The place I stayed here before was nicer and just a bit more in price. Also, I am having trouble with the wifi here; I was online for about 2 1/2 hours, but I have not been able to get online since. I chose the apartment for two reasons: to have a different experience and to be closer to the train station for going to Bangkok. I may go see if a room is available at the Sansabai where I stayed before if I cannot get back online here tomorrow morning.
As I went out to find a place for dinner, I met an Australian man and his new Thai bridge downstairs. They have been here for two months. He is probably about my age. She looks to be around 35. He told me there are several western men who meet at a bar across the street on Fridays to drink and visit. He and his wife plan to spend six months here and six months in Australia each year. Her family has a farm just outside of town.
I had a dish that is made from broad, homemade noodles in gravy for dinner. It included pork and the same green vegetable that is in most Thai dishes. The green vegetable is interesting. It is a bit like spinach with leaves and stems. It isn’t easy to chew. The stems are crunchy, and the leaves are a bit rubbery. The only processing that takes place is what is done with the teeth while chewing it. Whatever form one leaves it in when swallowing it is the form that it has when it comes out later. It appears to be a very good roughage material for eating. I’m not sure if any nutrients come from it since the stomach doesn’t seem to have an effect on it at all.
I’ve had bug fears recently on this trip. All the newspapers are running stories about bed bugs. There were TWO stories in one major newspaper on the same day this week! Of course, one of the warnings is that bed bugs are increasingly a problem due to increased international travel. Sleeping in maybe 35-40 hotels on each of my trips, my chances of encountering them are increased. I did have bed bugs in a hotel in Cochin, India, a few years ago In fact, I had them there twice, since I forgot about them and returned to the same hotel a couple of years later. It was horrible trying to sleep. On this trip, my bugs have been imaginary due to reading the articles. Once, earlier in the trip, I imagined that I had gotten head lice. My scalp gets itchy if I use certain shampoos. Normally it is fine, but I must have gotten a hotel shampoo that gave me the reaction. I switched to my own shampoo, but it takes about 3 days for the itch to go away. So for three days I kept thinking I felt lice moving around up there. I just knew I had gotten them from either sitting next to someone on the bus or from having a photo taken with a local person who had leaned his head toward mine. However, the itch went away. And lice NEVER go away without treatment; therefore, it was all my imagination. A couple of times since reading the recent stories, I have felt as if I was being bitten in bed and have gotten up to inspect. Each time it has been a false alarm—just the usual occasional itchy spot due to dry skin. Hope I make it home safely without any bed bugs hitching a ride in my luggage which is one way the articles all say they travel.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Udon Thani
Saturday, Aug. 21, 2010--Nong Khai to Udon Thani
There was heavy rain during the night. It was dry when I left the guest house, but rain began again about half the way to the bus station. Normally, I wouldn't travel on a day like this, but there was no reason to remain longer in Nong Khai.
We got out of the rain and it was dry when I arrived in Udon Thani. I ran into trouble finding a room, however. My first choice was a serviced apartment complex, but I couldn't find it. The building at the address on their website was locked. Usually these places are big buildings with offices that are open 24 hours per day. My second choice, also a serviced apartment, was a disappointment because they have wifi only in their lobby area and not in the rooms without paying extra. As I walked to my third choice place which was across town, the rain began again. Fortunately, Jan Condotel had a room and had free wifi. I checked in and stayed inside most of the day because the rain continued until 17:00.
Although across town from the bus station, Jan Condotel proved to be a good location. There isn't much worth seeing or doing in Udon Thani, but there is a wonderful park and lake that is near where I was staying. I walked entirely around the lake seeing many activities in the park and on the streets beside it: joggers and bicyclists each with separate pavements around the park, restaurants serving fish and other foods, places for painting ceramics, places for getting massage, exercise groups, etc.
I ate a very nice dish for dinner near my room. It was rice topped with slices of park with a dark sauce and was served with slices of cucumber and with green onions.
Sunday, Aug. 22, 2010--Udon Thani
The weather was nice, so I walked back to the bus station to check schedules for leaving tomorrow. I had read that Udon has nice breads and sandwiches, so I stopped at a local place where a woman made me two small sandwiches. They were good, but not as good as the sandwiches in Laos.
A large mall was nearby, so I went there. I checked to see if any English language films were showing that I would like to see. Only Toy Story 3 and Salt were showing, and I didn't feel like seeing either of them. There was a Dairy Queen in the mall, so I decided to have a Blizzard for dessert. They were out of the chocolate flavoring, so I ordered an Oreo Coffee one. It was delicious, but the coffee flavoring was very strong.
As I returned to my neighborhood, I went by the lake. It was deserted at 14:00. The temperatures are just too hot to be out at that time. Therefore, I returned to the room to relax. When I returned to the lake around 18:00, it was buzzing with activity.
I returned to the same restaurant and had noodle soup with pork. My diarrhea I had three days ago is still bothering me some. I don't have to stay near the toilet, but it hasn't firmed up. Therefore, I took Imodium tonight.
Monday, Aug. 23, 2010--Udon Thani to Khon Kaen
I didn't sleep well last night. Could the coffee in the DQ Blizzard have still be affecting me? Anyway, I had trouble going to sleep. Then I found myself waking up and tossing. I got up at 3:30 and got on the computer for a while, then I went back to sleep. But I was up again about 5:45.
Fortunately, the weather was fine for traveling. I caught a bus at 8:45 and was in Khon Kaen at 10:15. It was a rather long walk from the bus station to where I had decided to stay. Then when I got to the area, I couldn't find the place. It was just off the map in my guidebook, and I had marked where it seemed to be. However, it was obvious that it and the nearby hospital were no where around where I was. I went into a shop to ask, and the man indicated that it was south of where I was. Apparently, I had marked it in relation to the street north of the one where I should have marked it. Then the man did a remarkable thing. He told his employee to take their pickup truck and drive me there!
Khon Kaen is another town that is not much of a tourist destination. It is filled with western men with Thai wives or girlfriends, however. I've seen them all over the place. In fact, my hotel, the Orchid Hotel and Serviced Apartments is owned by an American man who is married to a Thai woman. It's a nice place. My room has a balcony overlooking the green trees of a local temple grounds. The room is furnished with nice locally-made furniture of heavy wood and has nice decorative touches. However, the location suffers from being just across a major highway from the rest of town.
I went exploring. A huge shopping mall, Central Plaza, is just across the highway from here. Getting there is a bit of a hassle, though, because it is necessary to go up the street to an overhead crosswalk or down the street to a lighted intersection. It's NOT the kind of highway one can just cross; it would be a bit like trying to cross an expressway in the US! Because it was too hot to explore the town, I went there. They had a Dairy Queen, so I treated myself to another Blizzard. Today, I ordered the "take home" size which was a pint (1/2 liter) and got the chocolate extreme--chocolate flavored ice cream with chunks of brownie inside. It wasn't as good as the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup version I usually get in the US, but it was fine. And the price was good at $1.83 US.
I was so tired from not sleeping well last night, that I went to bed about 14:30 and didn't awaken until 18:30! Guess I will have problems sleeping again tonight. I was still sluggish and didn't feel like going out. I just stayed in the room and watched TV. I'll read now until I decide I am tired enough to sleep again.
There was heavy rain during the night. It was dry when I left the guest house, but rain began again about half the way to the bus station. Normally, I wouldn't travel on a day like this, but there was no reason to remain longer in Nong Khai.
We got out of the rain and it was dry when I arrived in Udon Thani. I ran into trouble finding a room, however. My first choice was a serviced apartment complex, but I couldn't find it. The building at the address on their website was locked. Usually these places are big buildings with offices that are open 24 hours per day. My second choice, also a serviced apartment, was a disappointment because they have wifi only in their lobby area and not in the rooms without paying extra. As I walked to my third choice place which was across town, the rain began again. Fortunately, Jan Condotel had a room and had free wifi. I checked in and stayed inside most of the day because the rain continued until 17:00.
Although across town from the bus station, Jan Condotel proved to be a good location. There isn't much worth seeing or doing in Udon Thani, but there is a wonderful park and lake that is near where I was staying. I walked entirely around the lake seeing many activities in the park and on the streets beside it: joggers and bicyclists each with separate pavements around the park, restaurants serving fish and other foods, places for painting ceramics, places for getting massage, exercise groups, etc.
I ate a very nice dish for dinner near my room. It was rice topped with slices of park with a dark sauce and was served with slices of cucumber and with green onions.
Sunday, Aug. 22, 2010--Udon Thani
The weather was nice, so I walked back to the bus station to check schedules for leaving tomorrow. I had read that Udon has nice breads and sandwiches, so I stopped at a local place where a woman made me two small sandwiches. They were good, but not as good as the sandwiches in Laos.
A large mall was nearby, so I went there. I checked to see if any English language films were showing that I would like to see. Only Toy Story 3 and Salt were showing, and I didn't feel like seeing either of them. There was a Dairy Queen in the mall, so I decided to have a Blizzard for dessert. They were out of the chocolate flavoring, so I ordered an Oreo Coffee one. It was delicious, but the coffee flavoring was very strong.
As I returned to my neighborhood, I went by the lake. It was deserted at 14:00. The temperatures are just too hot to be out at that time. Therefore, I returned to the room to relax. When I returned to the lake around 18:00, it was buzzing with activity.
I returned to the same restaurant and had noodle soup with pork. My diarrhea I had three days ago is still bothering me some. I don't have to stay near the toilet, but it hasn't firmed up. Therefore, I took Imodium tonight.
Monday, Aug. 23, 2010--Udon Thani to Khon Kaen
I didn't sleep well last night. Could the coffee in the DQ Blizzard have still be affecting me? Anyway, I had trouble going to sleep. Then I found myself waking up and tossing. I got up at 3:30 and got on the computer for a while, then I went back to sleep. But I was up again about 5:45.
Fortunately, the weather was fine for traveling. I caught a bus at 8:45 and was in Khon Kaen at 10:15. It was a rather long walk from the bus station to where I had decided to stay. Then when I got to the area, I couldn't find the place. It was just off the map in my guidebook, and I had marked where it seemed to be. However, it was obvious that it and the nearby hospital were no where around where I was. I went into a shop to ask, and the man indicated that it was south of where I was. Apparently, I had marked it in relation to the street north of the one where I should have marked it. Then the man did a remarkable thing. He told his employee to take their pickup truck and drive me there!
Khon Kaen is another town that is not much of a tourist destination. It is filled with western men with Thai wives or girlfriends, however. I've seen them all over the place. In fact, my hotel, the Orchid Hotel and Serviced Apartments is owned by an American man who is married to a Thai woman. It's a nice place. My room has a balcony overlooking the green trees of a local temple grounds. The room is furnished with nice locally-made furniture of heavy wood and has nice decorative touches. However, the location suffers from being just across a major highway from the rest of town.
I went exploring. A huge shopping mall, Central Plaza, is just across the highway from here. Getting there is a bit of a hassle, though, because it is necessary to go up the street to an overhead crosswalk or down the street to a lighted intersection. It's NOT the kind of highway one can just cross; it would be a bit like trying to cross an expressway in the US! Because it was too hot to explore the town, I went there. They had a Dairy Queen, so I treated myself to another Blizzard. Today, I ordered the "take home" size which was a pint (1/2 liter) and got the chocolate extreme--chocolate flavored ice cream with chunks of brownie inside. It wasn't as good as the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup version I usually get in the US, but it was fine. And the price was good at $1.83 US.
I was so tired from not sleeping well last night, that I went to bed about 14:30 and didn't awaken until 18:30! Guess I will have problems sleeping again tonight. I was still sluggish and didn't feel like going out. I just stayed in the room and watched TV. I'll read now until I decide I am tired enough to sleep again.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Sunsets and Rainbows
Spending Update: I spent $482.44 over 23 days in Laos for an average of $20.97 per day. Since leaving Texas, I have spent $2972.36 over 106 days for an average of $28.04 per day.
Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010--Nong Khai (Part II)
Nong Khai is a very nice small city that is clean and attractive. It has a good selection of guest houses for tourists including many facing the Mekong River. It has a wonderful market called the Sadet Market (and also the Indochinese Market and sometimes just the Chinese Market). It is very clean, well organized, and is popular with both locals and tourists. At the suggestion of my guest house owner, I wandered through it during part of the afternoon. Many stalls sell locally woven fabrics. And many other specialize in dried fruits that look good. I bought what looked like wine crackers hoping that would be what they would taste like, too. However,they were very sweet and have more of a taste of crunchy meringues.
Back in the room to avoid the heat, I searched the TV channels. The only English language news I could find was Fox News and China News. Yuck! I can't stomach Fox, so I guess I will watch the Communists' version of what is happening in the world while I am here. I miss BBC!
In the late afternoon, I walked along the promenade with views of the Mekong River and Laos across the way. It is a very nice promenade and is very long. People along it were playing games such as badminton, fishing, exercising, setting up sidewalk restaurants for the evening, and visiting with friends. There was a fantastic sunset which I captured on my camera.
Back in my neighborhood, I found a sidewalk restaurant and had Phad Thai with shrimp, pork (including crispy skin), tofu, etc. It was one of the better versions of this dish that I have had.
In the room, I watched a French film on TV with English subtitles. Just as it ended, about 2 3/4 hours after I had eaten dinner, I had stomach cramps and diarrhea. Then the diarrhea returned two hours later. My guess is that it was caused by the shrimp in the Phad Thai. Anyway, the rest of the evening, everything was fine.
Friday, Aug. 20, 2010--Nong Khai
I have finally arranged a hotel in Bangkok for my last 5 nights here in Thailand. I have had trouble finding one with a decent price and free wifi. I decided not to stay at the Mandarin where I have been staying for years because their price has gone up to 1400 baht per day and they do not have wifi. The first two hotels I picked out for Bangkok said they had wifi, but they didn't use the word "free." I wrote to ask. The first one which was 900 baht per night said that the first hour of wifi per day is free and that they charge 250 baht per hour after that. (A cyber cafe in Bangkok only charges 20 baht per hour to be on the Internet!) The second hotel wrote back that there was free wifi in the room but that I had to pay 450 baht per day for a password. The rate for the room was only 1000 baht, so wifi was going to increase the daily cost by 45%!! Today, I finally found a decent place in a good location with a special promotion of only 770 baht per night including free wifi.
While on the computer, I also decided to order a new TV cabinet for my bedroom. I found one I like and delivery takes 4-6 weeks. So I ordered it in hopes of getting it before the end of September.
When I finally left the room at 10:00, it was already hot outside. That's because this was the second day with no clouds. Still, I went to the bus station to confirm the possible times for taking the bus tomorrow to Udon Thani, went to a local crafts store, and returned to the market to have a sandwich and buy some fabric. I told the lady at the market what I planned to do with the fabric, and she started taking notes. I think I may have introduced a new product that will be for sale here soon.
In the late afternoon, I was back out on the promenade. Some clouds had moved in, so it was rather comfortable walking along it tonight. I also had my book with me and sat and read for a while. When it started looking like it might rain, I headed for a street restaurant I had seen last night. It is operated by two ladies. The one who cooks looks rather elegant and elderly. She made a nice dish of stir-fried chicken and vegetables which was served over rice. While sitting there waiting for her to cook the dish, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky. And at one time there was the faint hint of a double rainbow. I was so glad I didn't miss it.
Back in the room, I finally found BBC News. I don't know how I missed it yesterday. Anyway, it was such a relief to have a nice news program to watch. I also saw a very interesting documentary on French TV5 about a female judge in Afghanistan who is working with tribal groups in an effort to get them to follow democratic ways of dealing with their problems.
Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010--Nong Khai (Part II)
Nong Khai is a very nice small city that is clean and attractive. It has a good selection of guest houses for tourists including many facing the Mekong River. It has a wonderful market called the Sadet Market (and also the Indochinese Market and sometimes just the Chinese Market). It is very clean, well organized, and is popular with both locals and tourists. At the suggestion of my guest house owner, I wandered through it during part of the afternoon. Many stalls sell locally woven fabrics. And many other specialize in dried fruits that look good. I bought what looked like wine crackers hoping that would be what they would taste like, too. However,they were very sweet and have more of a taste of crunchy meringues.
Back in the room to avoid the heat, I searched the TV channels. The only English language news I could find was Fox News and China News. Yuck! I can't stomach Fox, so I guess I will watch the Communists' version of what is happening in the world while I am here. I miss BBC!
In the late afternoon, I walked along the promenade with views of the Mekong River and Laos across the way. It is a very nice promenade and is very long. People along it were playing games such as badminton, fishing, exercising, setting up sidewalk restaurants for the evening, and visiting with friends. There was a fantastic sunset which I captured on my camera.
Back in my neighborhood, I found a sidewalk restaurant and had Phad Thai with shrimp, pork (including crispy skin), tofu, etc. It was one of the better versions of this dish that I have had.
In the room, I watched a French film on TV with English subtitles. Just as it ended, about 2 3/4 hours after I had eaten dinner, I had stomach cramps and diarrhea. Then the diarrhea returned two hours later. My guess is that it was caused by the shrimp in the Phad Thai. Anyway, the rest of the evening, everything was fine.
Friday, Aug. 20, 2010--Nong Khai
I have finally arranged a hotel in Bangkok for my last 5 nights here in Thailand. I have had trouble finding one with a decent price and free wifi. I decided not to stay at the Mandarin where I have been staying for years because their price has gone up to 1400 baht per day and they do not have wifi. The first two hotels I picked out for Bangkok said they had wifi, but they didn't use the word "free." I wrote to ask. The first one which was 900 baht per night said that the first hour of wifi per day is free and that they charge 250 baht per hour after that. (A cyber cafe in Bangkok only charges 20 baht per hour to be on the Internet!) The second hotel wrote back that there was free wifi in the room but that I had to pay 450 baht per day for a password. The rate for the room was only 1000 baht, so wifi was going to increase the daily cost by 45%!! Today, I finally found a decent place in a good location with a special promotion of only 770 baht per night including free wifi.
While on the computer, I also decided to order a new TV cabinet for my bedroom. I found one I like and delivery takes 4-6 weeks. So I ordered it in hopes of getting it before the end of September.
When I finally left the room at 10:00, it was already hot outside. That's because this was the second day with no clouds. Still, I went to the bus station to confirm the possible times for taking the bus tomorrow to Udon Thani, went to a local crafts store, and returned to the market to have a sandwich and buy some fabric. I told the lady at the market what I planned to do with the fabric, and she started taking notes. I think I may have introduced a new product that will be for sale here soon.
In the late afternoon, I was back out on the promenade. Some clouds had moved in, so it was rather comfortable walking along it tonight. I also had my book with me and sat and read for a while. When it started looking like it might rain, I headed for a street restaurant I had seen last night. It is operated by two ladies. The one who cooks looks rather elegant and elderly. She made a nice dish of stir-fried chicken and vegetables which was served over rice. While sitting there waiting for her to cook the dish, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky. And at one time there was the faint hint of a double rainbow. I was so glad I didn't miss it.
Back in the room, I finally found BBC News. I don't know how I missed it yesterday. Anyway, it was such a relief to have a nice news program to watch. I also saw a very interesting documentary on French TV5 about a female judge in Afghanistan who is working with tribal groups in an effort to get them to follow democratic ways of dealing with their problems.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Back in Thailand
Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2010--Vientiane
Today is my last day in Thailand. I have nothing special planned. I am still here because I need to finish spending my Lao money and because the time limit I will have in Thailand before I must leave demands that I stay here one more day.
After having another wonderful sandwich, I went to the a nearby temple and finished reading War Trash by Ha Jin. He is a former Chinese citizen who now is an American. He writes his books in English; they are not translations. And he is one of the better American authors, I think. This book about Chinese prisoners of war during the Korean Conflict had more details than seemed necessary; he apparently wanted to include all the evidence that he had about the negative aspects of both the Communists and the Nationalists as they manipulated and maneuvered to try to convince the POWs to choose to go to their side when they were repatriated. His book Waiting is a better novel, I think. I gave War Trash 3 1/2 stars out of 4.
After an afternoon researching my travel plans inside the room away from the heat, I went out around 17:00 looking for someone who would appreciate receiving my finished novel. I first asked an older American couple. I think they may have feared that I had an ulterior motive. He quickly responded, "We already have a couple of books that we brought." A few moments later I came across two guys sharing a beer and speaking in English. I asked if either of them read books in English and would like a free one I have finished and wanted to give away to avoid the weight in my bag. One of them, a man from Holland, responded that he reads English books. They asked me to join them. I sat and visited for about 45 minutes. The other man was from Italy. The two of them had met and spent some time together in Colombia two years ago, and they just accidentally ran into each other this afternoon here in Vientiane. What a nice coincidence.
For my last meal, I had some spicy pork and basil in a sauce over rice. Then I bought two small pastries to have for dessert. That took me down to 21,000 kip, the local currency which is not convertible and cannot be exchanged outside of Lao. (By the way, everyone here calls the country Lao rather than Laos, so I have learned to do the same. They call themselves Lao people rather than Laotians, too.) That amount is just perfect, because the bus tomorrow should be 15,000 kip leaving me 6000 for buying a final sandwich.
Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010--Vientiane to Nong Khai (Part 1)
I made some good decisions this morning. I awoke earlier than necessary, since I was planning to take the 9:30 bus across the border. My plan was to go get a sandwich at the usual place for 6000 kip, return to the hotel to check out, and walk to the bus station. In the back of my mind, however, I kept thinking that the 9:30 bus would probably be the most popular. That made me worry that all the seats might be pre-sold by the time I made it to the station. Since I was up at 6:15, I decided to skip the sandwich and rush to try to catch the 7:30 bus.
When I arrived at the bus station at 7:05, I had no problems getting a ticket for the bus. But there was one surprise. Last weekend was the birthday of the Queen of Thailand. When I went to the bus station to check the ticket price, the schedule sign showed 15,000 kip, but a paper sign on the window said "Holiday Today, 17,000 kip." Well, that same paper sign was still up today and everyone was paying 17,000 for their tickets. Apparently, it is the "normal" price in spite of the wording of the sign. If I had bought the sandwich before coming to the station as I had planned, I would have been 2000 kip short in terms of buying my ticket. The ticket itself only said 15,000 kip, however. My guess is that the woman who works the ticket window gets paid the extra 2000 kip per ticket as her salary. Anyway, deciding to skip the sandwich and deciding to take the 7:30 bus instead of the one at 9:30 proved to be great decisions.
While waiting for the bus, a woman came up selling sandwiches and a type of pastry. I asked the price of the pastry, and she said it was 5000 kip. I told her I was sorry because I only had 4000 kip. She pointed to the sandwiches and said they were 2000 kip. I bought one, since the money would be no good to me once I left the country. It was not the quality of the sandwiches I have bought before. It was mostly cucumber and a thin layer of something creamy inside. And the baguette was of poor quality (like what they sell at HEB) rather than the wonderful crusty ones for the better sandwiches I have been having. (Isn't it a pity that HEB has never made the effort to produce decent quality bread even at their Central Market stores?)
The bus was full of Lao people traveling across the river to shop in Thailand. They have special border passes which they can use within a certain distance--much like Mexicans can cross to shop in Texas as long as they stay inside the Border Patrol checkpoints. There was only one other tourist besides me. One woman had a small boy in her arms, so I offered the child the final 2000 kips (24 cents US) that I still had.
Crossing was not problem, although the men on the Lao side were rather slow at checking everything. Normally LEAVING a country is the fast process. But Lao is a Communist country, so I guess trying to control people is still a priority for them. In Thailand, it went much faster.
There was a pleasant surprise after we crossed the bridge and completed Thai immigration and customs. The bus came all the way into the town of Nong Khai. In all my research, every reference to the bus said that it would stop at the International Bus Station which was about 4 km (2.5 miles) west of town near the bridge. I was prepared to walk a long way to get into town, and I even asked a man if I would be closer to town by walking from the bridge than by staying on the bus to the station. Well, the bus turned and went all the way into town to the local bus station. None of my websites had indicated that would happen. I only had to walk about 5 blocks to get to where I had planned to stay.
I had three choices picked out for consideration as my new lodging. One was the Huan Lai Apartments, another was the Thai Nong Khai Guest House, and the other was the Friendship Guest House which doesn't have a website but has received good reviews. Because of the prices and locations, that was my order of preference. I passed by the Friendship Guest House on the way, but I didn't stop, since it was a bit outside the center of town and only my third choice; I figured I could go back if necessary. I stopped at the Huan Lai and looked. It was an apartment complex like where I have stayed in other cities. The room was fine, but a bit plain and on the fifth floor without an elevator. Also, wifi was available only in the lobby. The Thai Nong Khai Guest House is near there, so I went to it as my second choice. It consists of bungalows scattered in a garden area back behind the buildings that are facing the street in the block. It was $4.50 more per day, but it had wifi in the room. Also, the price was for an individual bungalow (not a duplex) that is large and bright and has a small garden sitting area outside. I decided to pay the extra price for the privacy and the convenience of staying there for $17 per night. I never went back to check on the Friendship Guest House.
Today is my last day in Thailand. I have nothing special planned. I am still here because I need to finish spending my Lao money and because the time limit I will have in Thailand before I must leave demands that I stay here one more day.
After having another wonderful sandwich, I went to the a nearby temple and finished reading War Trash by Ha Jin. He is a former Chinese citizen who now is an American. He writes his books in English; they are not translations. And he is one of the better American authors, I think. This book about Chinese prisoners of war during the Korean Conflict had more details than seemed necessary; he apparently wanted to include all the evidence that he had about the negative aspects of both the Communists and the Nationalists as they manipulated and maneuvered to try to convince the POWs to choose to go to their side when they were repatriated. His book Waiting is a better novel, I think. I gave War Trash 3 1/2 stars out of 4.
After an afternoon researching my travel plans inside the room away from the heat, I went out around 17:00 looking for someone who would appreciate receiving my finished novel. I first asked an older American couple. I think they may have feared that I had an ulterior motive. He quickly responded, "We already have a couple of books that we brought." A few moments later I came across two guys sharing a beer and speaking in English. I asked if either of them read books in English and would like a free one I have finished and wanted to give away to avoid the weight in my bag. One of them, a man from Holland, responded that he reads English books. They asked me to join them. I sat and visited for about 45 minutes. The other man was from Italy. The two of them had met and spent some time together in Colombia two years ago, and they just accidentally ran into each other this afternoon here in Vientiane. What a nice coincidence.
For my last meal, I had some spicy pork and basil in a sauce over rice. Then I bought two small pastries to have for dessert. That took me down to 21,000 kip, the local currency which is not convertible and cannot be exchanged outside of Lao. (By the way, everyone here calls the country Lao rather than Laos, so I have learned to do the same. They call themselves Lao people rather than Laotians, too.) That amount is just perfect, because the bus tomorrow should be 15,000 kip leaving me 6000 for buying a final sandwich.
Thursday, Aug. 19, 2010--Vientiane to Nong Khai (Part 1)
I made some good decisions this morning. I awoke earlier than necessary, since I was planning to take the 9:30 bus across the border. My plan was to go get a sandwich at the usual place for 6000 kip, return to the hotel to check out, and walk to the bus station. In the back of my mind, however, I kept thinking that the 9:30 bus would probably be the most popular. That made me worry that all the seats might be pre-sold by the time I made it to the station. Since I was up at 6:15, I decided to skip the sandwich and rush to try to catch the 7:30 bus.
When I arrived at the bus station at 7:05, I had no problems getting a ticket for the bus. But there was one surprise. Last weekend was the birthday of the Queen of Thailand. When I went to the bus station to check the ticket price, the schedule sign showed 15,000 kip, but a paper sign on the window said "Holiday Today, 17,000 kip." Well, that same paper sign was still up today and everyone was paying 17,000 for their tickets. Apparently, it is the "normal" price in spite of the wording of the sign. If I had bought the sandwich before coming to the station as I had planned, I would have been 2000 kip short in terms of buying my ticket. The ticket itself only said 15,000 kip, however. My guess is that the woman who works the ticket window gets paid the extra 2000 kip per ticket as her salary. Anyway, deciding to skip the sandwich and deciding to take the 7:30 bus instead of the one at 9:30 proved to be great decisions.
While waiting for the bus, a woman came up selling sandwiches and a type of pastry. I asked the price of the pastry, and she said it was 5000 kip. I told her I was sorry because I only had 4000 kip. She pointed to the sandwiches and said they were 2000 kip. I bought one, since the money would be no good to me once I left the country. It was not the quality of the sandwiches I have bought before. It was mostly cucumber and a thin layer of something creamy inside. And the baguette was of poor quality (like what they sell at HEB) rather than the wonderful crusty ones for the better sandwiches I have been having. (Isn't it a pity that HEB has never made the effort to produce decent quality bread even at their Central Market stores?)
The bus was full of Lao people traveling across the river to shop in Thailand. They have special border passes which they can use within a certain distance--much like Mexicans can cross to shop in Texas as long as they stay inside the Border Patrol checkpoints. There was only one other tourist besides me. One woman had a small boy in her arms, so I offered the child the final 2000 kips (24 cents US) that I still had.
Crossing was not problem, although the men on the Lao side were rather slow at checking everything. Normally LEAVING a country is the fast process. But Lao is a Communist country, so I guess trying to control people is still a priority for them. In Thailand, it went much faster.
There was a pleasant surprise after we crossed the bridge and completed Thai immigration and customs. The bus came all the way into the town of Nong Khai. In all my research, every reference to the bus said that it would stop at the International Bus Station which was about 4 km (2.5 miles) west of town near the bridge. I was prepared to walk a long way to get into town, and I even asked a man if I would be closer to town by walking from the bridge than by staying on the bus to the station. Well, the bus turned and went all the way into town to the local bus station. None of my websites had indicated that would happen. I only had to walk about 5 blocks to get to where I had planned to stay.
I had three choices picked out for consideration as my new lodging. One was the Huan Lai Apartments, another was the Thai Nong Khai Guest House, and the other was the Friendship Guest House which doesn't have a website but has received good reviews. Because of the prices and locations, that was my order of preference. I passed by the Friendship Guest House on the way, but I didn't stop, since it was a bit outside the center of town and only my third choice; I figured I could go back if necessary. I stopped at the Huan Lai and looked. It was an apartment complex like where I have stayed in other cities. The room was fine, but a bit plain and on the fifth floor without an elevator. Also, wifi was available only in the lobby. The Thai Nong Khai Guest House is near there, so I went to it as my second choice. It consists of bungalows scattered in a garden area back behind the buildings that are facing the street in the block. It was $4.50 more per day, but it had wifi in the room. Also, the price was for an individual bungalow (not a duplex) that is large and bright and has a small garden sitting area outside. I decided to pay the extra price for the privacy and the convenience of staying there for $17 per night. I never went back to check on the Friendship Guest House.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Quiet Days in Vientiane
Monday, Aug. 16, 2010--Vientiane
This was a slow day for me. After going for a morning sandwich, I stopped at two temples to read and ended up visiting with monks at both. One was Khip whom I had met yesterday--a delightful young man with such a positive attitude toward life and such an interest in improving his English.
I also met a young Lao man who is in marketing for a travel agency and conducts tours to Cambodia, Malaysia, and other neighboring countries. He was quite stylish for a Laotian with frosted tips to his hair which was styled with heavy use of gel.
Had Phad Thai for dinner and ate pastries afterwards.
Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010--Vientiane
I picked up my laundry this morning and was pleasantly surprised with how clean it was. So often in the past I have gotten it back with shirts still having collar rings and socks still looking dirty. That's one reason I've been doing my own laundry. But everything looked fine this time around.
I returned to the place where I have been having morning sandwiches lately and tried a tuna one this time. I sat with Fabio, a young Italian, to eat it. We visited a long time. He is one of a group of 4 people who have been living in Thailand at its border with Myanmar and providing arts programs for the children of the Burmese refugees. Fabio himself has a degree in theater and likes to do sculpture. The job they are doing is a paid position that is dependent upon funding through external agencies. He is here because they have just gotten funding for a project in Pakse with a women's shelter to provide a similar program. Unfortunately, they have about a 3 month gap between when the Thai project ends and the Lao project begins, so we talked about his need to find a way to make money during this time and what his possibilities might be. It was fun hear about the projects and to observe how dedicated he is to trying to do good in this world.
I visited with the monk Thip again this afternoon at his temple. He asked me if I would go home with him this weekend to visit his family. It would be a wonderful opportunity to be in a local home, eat local food, see how the family members interact, etc. But his home is too far from here. It is east of Savannakhet which would involve an overnight bus trip to Savannakhet followed by a 2 hour tuk-tuk trip to his town. I told him I needed to check to see how long I am allowed to stay in Lao in my passport. But tomorrow I will tell him I cannot go. I will stick with my plans for returning to Thailand on Thursday. It's all worked out in terms of spending the last of my Lao currency tomorrow and on the bus trip across the river, too. Changing my plans would just complicate things. It's too bad it couldn't have been last weekend which would have given me a nice way to leave Vientiane for a few days and still have let me depart for Thailand on time.
Before going to dinner, I was sitting in the yard of Wat Inpeng reading a book. Just as it started to get too dark to read anymore, the monks entered the temple building and started chanting. I walked over and looked into the doors. It was such a magical moment. The lighting was low--a combination of giant candles and two multi-globe light fixtures. There was a giant golden Buddha. The monks sat on the floor facing the Buddha chanting. It was truly something special to see and hear.
This was a slow day for me. After going for a morning sandwich, I stopped at two temples to read and ended up visiting with monks at both. One was Khip whom I had met yesterday--a delightful young man with such a positive attitude toward life and such an interest in improving his English.
I also met a young Lao man who is in marketing for a travel agency and conducts tours to Cambodia, Malaysia, and other neighboring countries. He was quite stylish for a Laotian with frosted tips to his hair which was styled with heavy use of gel.
Had Phad Thai for dinner and ate pastries afterwards.
Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2010--Vientiane
I picked up my laundry this morning and was pleasantly surprised with how clean it was. So often in the past I have gotten it back with shirts still having collar rings and socks still looking dirty. That's one reason I've been doing my own laundry. But everything looked fine this time around.
I returned to the place where I have been having morning sandwiches lately and tried a tuna one this time. I sat with Fabio, a young Italian, to eat it. We visited a long time. He is one of a group of 4 people who have been living in Thailand at its border with Myanmar and providing arts programs for the children of the Burmese refugees. Fabio himself has a degree in theater and likes to do sculpture. The job they are doing is a paid position that is dependent upon funding through external agencies. He is here because they have just gotten funding for a project in Pakse with a women's shelter to provide a similar program. Unfortunately, they have about a 3 month gap between when the Thai project ends and the Lao project begins, so we talked about his need to find a way to make money during this time and what his possibilities might be. It was fun hear about the projects and to observe how dedicated he is to trying to do good in this world.
I visited with the monk Thip again this afternoon at his temple. He asked me if I would go home with him this weekend to visit his family. It would be a wonderful opportunity to be in a local home, eat local food, see how the family members interact, etc. But his home is too far from here. It is east of Savannakhet which would involve an overnight bus trip to Savannakhet followed by a 2 hour tuk-tuk trip to his town. I told him I needed to check to see how long I am allowed to stay in Lao in my passport. But tomorrow I will tell him I cannot go. I will stick with my plans for returning to Thailand on Thursday. It's all worked out in terms of spending the last of my Lao currency tomorrow and on the bus trip across the river, too. Changing my plans would just complicate things. It's too bad it couldn't have been last weekend which would have given me a nice way to leave Vientiane for a few days and still have let me depart for Thailand on time.
Before going to dinner, I was sitting in the yard of Wat Inpeng reading a book. Just as it started to get too dark to read anymore, the monks entered the temple building and started chanting. I walked over and looked into the doors. It was such a magical moment. The lighting was low--a combination of giant candles and two multi-globe light fixtures. There was a giant golden Buddha. The monks sat on the floor facing the Buddha chanting. It was truly something special to see and hear.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Change of Travel Plans
Friday, Aug. 13, 2010--Vientiane
Heavy rain with lightning and thunder started around 3:00. As the morning progressed, the rain continued. I had planned to take the bus to Vang Vieng today and spend 3-4 days there before returning to Vientiane. I didn't want to travel in the rain, however, so I just slept in and decided to postpone my trip until tomorrow. The day ended up remaining cloudy although the rain ended about 9:30 or 10:00. That resulted in a cool afternoon. I took my current book and went to a couple of Buddhist temples to read. All the temples have outdoor seating and/or tables usually in shady areas. At each, however, after reading a few pages a monk came to me and wanted to talk.
I didn't mind visiting with the monks. The conversations are always interesting, and I learn things I never knew in each conversation. One of the monks told me that they have a problem with tourists bringing beer into the temple and sitting at the tables drinking. He said they would not let a Lao person do that, but they do not feel they can tell a foreigner not to do so. When I mentioned the number of people searching for rooms at night, the other one told me that they often let men sleep in the temples. They do not allow women and men to stay together in the temples, however.
I found a new restaurant tonight that had very good food. I had pork and vegetables in brown sauce over fried egg noodles. It was very filling and cheap. While sitting there waiting for my food to be prepared, I was thinking about tomorrow being Saturday and wondering if I would have trouble getting a room in Vang Vieng. Then I thought, I've been there before. Why am I going again? I have such a nice hotel here, I should just stay here until I can return to Thailand on Thursday. I felt so much better after deciding to do that. I won't miss making those two 5-hour bus trips that would have been required to go to Vang Vieng, and there is nothing there that I will miss either. It is mostly a party place for young people.
I sat on my balcony after returning to the room and watched the Friday night crowds as they moved up and down the street. Of course, mixed among them were people trudging with their backpacks from guest house to guest house looking for a room.
Saturday, Aug. 14, 2010--Vientiane
Now that I have decided to stay here for 5 more days, I don't feel a need to get out and do something every morning. Today, I stayed inside and did research on the computer related to places to stay at my next two stops. I think I have picked out some good possibilities.
Around 10:45, I got a sandwich and took my book to another nearby temple. On Saturday, the monks sleep late and are seldom seen. Today, I could sit and read with no problem. There was the cutest fluffy, dark gray puppy there, however. He slowly worked his way toward me. He picked up a piece of pork that had fallen out of my sandwich and ate it. Then he started rubbing against my legs. He was so sweet.
The sun came out around 1:00, and it became to feel hot. I returned to the room, watched the news on TV, and read some more. Then I went back out around 17:30. I decided to explore the construction site for the park along the riverfront. I have been seeing people there every day, so I thought I might as well go, too. The big equipment was out grating and rolling a wide pathway along the top of the levy they have built. And the trails leading to the levy are mostly unpaved. But I walked on the curbs and made my way there. Many people were up there and just moved slightly out of the way anytime a big piece of equipment came toward them. The park is going to be nice when it is finished. One of the monks the other day told me that it is a gift form South Korea. They've already put grass on parts of it, and a large number of workers were setting out plants and flowers in one area today.
I returned to the same restaurant to eat tonight. Just as I walked up, there was Charles, the Lao man who lives in Australia. I joined him. There was another man at the table who had been talking to Charles, so I introduced myself to him. His name is Justin. He's an American and is so much like me it is unbelievable. He is a scientist who contracted for work related to satellites mainly with NASA. He quit his job and has been traveling and doing volunteer work teaching science. Charles kept asking him the same questions he had asked me three nights ago: Why do you travel alone? What interests you about traveling? Etc. Justin gave exactly the same answers I had given. I kept turning to Charles and asking, "Does that sound familiar?" Anyway, we had a nice visit. Then after eating, I bought a beer and we stood on my balcony drinking it and visiting further. Before he left, I gave him the website and contact information for St. Joseph's International Academy in India where I volunteered, showed him a web address I found this morning for volunteering at Nong Khai across the river from here in Thailand, and my e-mail address. I suggested that he come to San Antonio for a visit when he is back in the States.
Heavy rain with lightning and thunder started around 3:00. As the morning progressed, the rain continued. I had planned to take the bus to Vang Vieng today and spend 3-4 days there before returning to Vientiane. I didn't want to travel in the rain, however, so I just slept in and decided to postpone my trip until tomorrow. The day ended up remaining cloudy although the rain ended about 9:30 or 10:00. That resulted in a cool afternoon. I took my current book and went to a couple of Buddhist temples to read. All the temples have outdoor seating and/or tables usually in shady areas. At each, however, after reading a few pages a monk came to me and wanted to talk.
I didn't mind visiting with the monks. The conversations are always interesting, and I learn things I never knew in each conversation. One of the monks told me that they have a problem with tourists bringing beer into the temple and sitting at the tables drinking. He said they would not let a Lao person do that, but they do not feel they can tell a foreigner not to do so. When I mentioned the number of people searching for rooms at night, the other one told me that they often let men sleep in the temples. They do not allow women and men to stay together in the temples, however.
I found a new restaurant tonight that had very good food. I had pork and vegetables in brown sauce over fried egg noodles. It was very filling and cheap. While sitting there waiting for my food to be prepared, I was thinking about tomorrow being Saturday and wondering if I would have trouble getting a room in Vang Vieng. Then I thought, I've been there before. Why am I going again? I have such a nice hotel here, I should just stay here until I can return to Thailand on Thursday. I felt so much better after deciding to do that. I won't miss making those two 5-hour bus trips that would have been required to go to Vang Vieng, and there is nothing there that I will miss either. It is mostly a party place for young people.
I sat on my balcony after returning to the room and watched the Friday night crowds as they moved up and down the street. Of course, mixed among them were people trudging with their backpacks from guest house to guest house looking for a room.
Saturday, Aug. 14, 2010--Vientiane
Now that I have decided to stay here for 5 more days, I don't feel a need to get out and do something every morning. Today, I stayed inside and did research on the computer related to places to stay at my next two stops. I think I have picked out some good possibilities.
Around 10:45, I got a sandwich and took my book to another nearby temple. On Saturday, the monks sleep late and are seldom seen. Today, I could sit and read with no problem. There was the cutest fluffy, dark gray puppy there, however. He slowly worked his way toward me. He picked up a piece of pork that had fallen out of my sandwich and ate it. Then he started rubbing against my legs. He was so sweet.
The sun came out around 1:00, and it became to feel hot. I returned to the room, watched the news on TV, and read some more. Then I went back out around 17:30. I decided to explore the construction site for the park along the riverfront. I have been seeing people there every day, so I thought I might as well go, too. The big equipment was out grating and rolling a wide pathway along the top of the levy they have built. And the trails leading to the levy are mostly unpaved. But I walked on the curbs and made my way there. Many people were up there and just moved slightly out of the way anytime a big piece of equipment came toward them. The park is going to be nice when it is finished. One of the monks the other day told me that it is a gift form South Korea. They've already put grass on parts of it, and a large number of workers were setting out plants and flowers in one area today.
I returned to the same restaurant to eat tonight. Just as I walked up, there was Charles, the Lao man who lives in Australia. I joined him. There was another man at the table who had been talking to Charles, so I introduced myself to him. His name is Justin. He's an American and is so much like me it is unbelievable. He is a scientist who contracted for work related to satellites mainly with NASA. He quit his job and has been traveling and doing volunteer work teaching science. Charles kept asking him the same questions he had asked me three nights ago: Why do you travel alone? What interests you about traveling? Etc. Justin gave exactly the same answers I had given. I kept turning to Charles and asking, "Does that sound familiar?" Anyway, we had a nice visit. Then after eating, I bought a beer and we stood on my balcony drinking it and visiting further. Before he left, I gave him the website and contact information for St. Joseph's International Academy in India where I volunteered, showed him a web address I found this morning for volunteering at Nong Khai across the river from here in Thailand, and my e-mail address. I suggested that he come to San Antonio for a visit when he is back in the States.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Best Mall in Town
Thursday, Aug. 12, 2010--Vientiane
Due to my napping, I didn't make it to bed until midnight last night. But I was able to sleep until almost 9:00 this morning. It made today a much better day. There were rain showers early in the day, so I stayed on the computer for a while. Finally, I left at 10:45 heading for what the tourist office said was a mall with a cinema showing international films. I thought maybe I might choose a movie to see and eat at the food court.
The mall is on the edge of town, so it took me about an hour to walk there. On the way, I saw some interesting sights. At the market I passed, there were baskets of fried larvae selling as snacks. At one store, there was a cage with grown dogs in it; that's usually a sign that they are being sold for cooking as food in this part of the world. At a restaurant I passed, there was a whole, large pig on a spit (a large metal pipe) cooking over a fire.
Well, this is not Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. The mall here happens to be what we would call a mini-mall in the U.S. It is a large, open building, but there are no real stores. Instead, there are many market-like stalls which are operated by individuals who lease space. The cinema has only two screens. One of them was showing The Karate Kid as their international film. It wasn't one I wanted to see, so I skipped it. The food court was actually a large tent in the parking lot with food stalls like the ones that are located on sidewalks in the rest of town. I ate a fried rice mixture which was a small portion that was over-priced.
The walk back was in the heat of the day. I took a different route just so I could see something new. But I was so sticky and hot by the time I got back to the hotel around 13:45. It was a relief to drink a cold bottle of water and sit in the air-conditioned room.
I returned to the same sidewalk place where I ate last night for my dinner. This time I ordered Pad ta pao which was a stir-fry of various vegetables served over rice. While there, I talked to an Indian man. His wife is Laotian and owns the restaurant. He has lived here for 13 years and operates a business involving glassware. He was talking about what a wonderful place it is for conducting business with low taxes and people eager to work for low wages. He seems to think the country will take off economically as investors decide that China and India are becoming too expensive. However, the Laotian man from Australia who ate with me last night told me he has no investments here and would not invest here due to the problem of the bribes that must be paid regularly to officials. Maybe the difference is attitudes is due to the fact that the Indian man was already used to paying bribes in India and does not see that as anything unique.
Thunderstorms were in the area. I walked around some after eating, but I didn't get far from my hotel. Eventually I returned to the room and sat on my balcony watching the new arrivals going up and down the street trying to find rooms in the guest houses.
If all goes well, I think I will leave tomorrow morning for Vang Vieng. If it is raining, I'll stay here, though. But I think it would be better to arrive there on a Friday and get a room than it would be to arrive there on a Saturday looking for one. It is the most popular backpacker spot in all of Laos.
Due to my napping, I didn't make it to bed until midnight last night. But I was able to sleep until almost 9:00 this morning. It made today a much better day. There were rain showers early in the day, so I stayed on the computer for a while. Finally, I left at 10:45 heading for what the tourist office said was a mall with a cinema showing international films. I thought maybe I might choose a movie to see and eat at the food court.
The mall is on the edge of town, so it took me about an hour to walk there. On the way, I saw some interesting sights. At the market I passed, there were baskets of fried larvae selling as snacks. At one store, there was a cage with grown dogs in it; that's usually a sign that they are being sold for cooking as food in this part of the world. At a restaurant I passed, there was a whole, large pig on a spit (a large metal pipe) cooking over a fire.
Well, this is not Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. The mall here happens to be what we would call a mini-mall in the U.S. It is a large, open building, but there are no real stores. Instead, there are many market-like stalls which are operated by individuals who lease space. The cinema has only two screens. One of them was showing The Karate Kid as their international film. It wasn't one I wanted to see, so I skipped it. The food court was actually a large tent in the parking lot with food stalls like the ones that are located on sidewalks in the rest of town. I ate a fried rice mixture which was a small portion that was over-priced.
The walk back was in the heat of the day. I took a different route just so I could see something new. But I was so sticky and hot by the time I got back to the hotel around 13:45. It was a relief to drink a cold bottle of water and sit in the air-conditioned room.
I returned to the same sidewalk place where I ate last night for my dinner. This time I ordered Pad ta pao which was a stir-fry of various vegetables served over rice. While there, I talked to an Indian man. His wife is Laotian and owns the restaurant. He has lived here for 13 years and operates a business involving glassware. He was talking about what a wonderful place it is for conducting business with low taxes and people eager to work for low wages. He seems to think the country will take off economically as investors decide that China and India are becoming too expensive. However, the Laotian man from Australia who ate with me last night told me he has no investments here and would not invest here due to the problem of the bribes that must be paid regularly to officials. Maybe the difference is attitudes is due to the fact that the Indian man was already used to paying bribes in India and does not see that as anything unique.
Thunderstorms were in the area. I walked around some after eating, but I didn't get far from my hotel. Eventually I returned to the room and sat on my balcony watching the new arrivals going up and down the street trying to find rooms in the guest houses.
If all goes well, I think I will leave tomorrow morning for Vang Vieng. If it is raining, I'll stay here, though. But I think it would be better to arrive there on a Friday and get a room than it would be to arrive there on a Saturday looking for one. It is the most popular backpacker spot in all of Laos.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Food and Sauna
Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2010--Vientiane
My first order of business was to get a better map. I had made a hand-drawn map off the internet to get from the bus station to the hotel when I arrived yesterday morning, and it worked well for that, but it only covered the immediate area of town where I was staying. I wanted one that would show more of the city so I could find places I knew I would be wanting to go. That meant going to the tourist office. I had to look up a map on the internet again to see how to get there, since it was beyond the borders of my original drawing. I walked to there and got a map and answers to some questions. I also read the English-language paper to see what was going on in the city.
I crossed the street to the French Language Institute to read their bulletin boards. My guidebook said that they show films three times a week with English subtitles. But there was nothing posted about any recent activities. There was a post for a circus in June. My guess is that their schedule of activities stops during the European summer months.
The Morning Market is near there, so I wandered through part of it. Mostly I saw stalls selling Lao weaving--sarongs, dresses, etc.
After resting a while in my room, I started walking to the Wat Sok Pa Luang. It is on the edge of town and is known as one of the better places to go for sauna and a massage. I had gone there 9 years ago when I was here before, but then I was inexperienced as a traveler. When I got there, I hesitated to go further when a boy pointed out a shack on stilts in the woods as the place. This time, I was looking forward to being there and having the experience. It was a long, hot walk there in the middle of the afternoon, but the guidebook had said that the best times to be there would be between 15:00 and 17:00. I arrived at 15:30.
I was giving a sarong and guided to a small changing room. Then I was given a drawer for storing my bag and clothes. I entered the sauna which has herbs (lemon grass) added to the steam. It made a nice aroma. And the heat was not too bad. The room was large enough that one could sit near the steam vent or move a bit away from it as desired. I was the only one there.
I left the steam room and sat in the open-air area to have a cup of herbal tea. Then I re-entered the sauna with a young man from France. When we both left, he showed me that there is a place for "showering" to cool down. We went down from the house on stilts to an opening where there was a large barrel of water with small plastic bowls floating on top. We dipped the bowls to pick up water, and then poured it over our bodies. It did feel nice and refreshing.
We visited for a while when we returned upstairs, because they were not ready to give us a massage yet. Then we were assigned masseurs. The same outdoor platform on stilts had a section with six beds. They put us on beds and gave us the massage. Lao massage is nicer, I think, than Thai massage. It using pressure like Thai massage, but the "torture" techniques are not used where Thai masseurs try to push and pull parts of the body into places there they normally would not go. Lao pressure involves thump or finger point pressure on muscles. It was very relaxing and felt wonderful. It rained while we were getting out massage, and the fact that it was an open platform outdoors made the experience even nicer with the sound of the rain and the fresh air it created.
When the massage ended, I asked the man who seemed to be managing the place if I could return to the sauna and was told I could. I went inside. A Lao man was there this time. Then, the manager came inside, too. Things had slowed down outside, because it was then about 17:30. His English was great, so he and I visited for almost an hour inside the sauna. He had another friend, a policeman, who arrived and joined us, but the friend did not speak any English. It was so nice, however, relaxing there and visiting with them (via translations by the manager for whatever the policeman said).
Heavy rain began just before I departed. It was obvious that it would not let up, so I just had to open my umbrella and walk in it. There were no tuk-tuks around at that hour and under those conditions. Therefore, I walked the 3 km (2 miles) back to town in the rain. My shoes and socks were completed soaked.
Rather than stop to eat, I just bought some pastries for dinner. Two were filled with pork, and the others were sweet. I ate them in the room.
Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010--Vientiane
My head felt as if I had a hangover when I got up this morning. And my entire body felt sluggish. Maybe it was the herbs in the herbal sauna that gave me that feeling. Anyway, it was still cloudy and there was some rain, so I just stayed around the room until 11:00. Then I pushed myself to go out for a sandwich. While out, I tried to find the Chinese Market. I think I was near it, but I never came across it and didn't feel like making the effort of being sure to find it. I was able to help a French woman who was wanting the bus station; she had been walking in the opposite direction, so I got her turned around and headed the right way. I just made a giant loop and walked back to the hotel.
Feeling too tired to do anything else, I got into bed and fell into a deep sleep for about 3-4 hours. I had to force myself to get up. When I did, I was surprised to see it was already 18:00.
I walked to a nearby intersection with lots of street food stalls. One was making Phad Thai that looked good, so I ordered that. While eating, a man about my age joined me at the table. He is originally from here, but he lives in Australia now. He worked at the US Embassy when he lived in Laos. But he immigrated to Australia 35 years ago where he worked as an immigration officer for the government. He said that he returns to Laos once a year to keep contact with friends, to enjoy the foods, and to see the changes that occur here. We had a very good conversation. After eating, he gave me a walking tour of the block telling me what to eat at which restaurants. He was staying at an older hotel where he always stays, so I brought him to my hotel to show him my room which sounds as if it is a better bargain than his.
I've stayed inside since then. I don't know if I will be able to sleep well tonight or not after so much napping this afternoon.
My first order of business was to get a better map. I had made a hand-drawn map off the internet to get from the bus station to the hotel when I arrived yesterday morning, and it worked well for that, but it only covered the immediate area of town where I was staying. I wanted one that would show more of the city so I could find places I knew I would be wanting to go. That meant going to the tourist office. I had to look up a map on the internet again to see how to get there, since it was beyond the borders of my original drawing. I walked to there and got a map and answers to some questions. I also read the English-language paper to see what was going on in the city.
I crossed the street to the French Language Institute to read their bulletin boards. My guidebook said that they show films three times a week with English subtitles. But there was nothing posted about any recent activities. There was a post for a circus in June. My guess is that their schedule of activities stops during the European summer months.
The Morning Market is near there, so I wandered through part of it. Mostly I saw stalls selling Lao weaving--sarongs, dresses, etc.
After resting a while in my room, I started walking to the Wat Sok Pa Luang. It is on the edge of town and is known as one of the better places to go for sauna and a massage. I had gone there 9 years ago when I was here before, but then I was inexperienced as a traveler. When I got there, I hesitated to go further when a boy pointed out a shack on stilts in the woods as the place. This time, I was looking forward to being there and having the experience. It was a long, hot walk there in the middle of the afternoon, but the guidebook had said that the best times to be there would be between 15:00 and 17:00. I arrived at 15:30.
I was giving a sarong and guided to a small changing room. Then I was given a drawer for storing my bag and clothes. I entered the sauna which has herbs (lemon grass) added to the steam. It made a nice aroma. And the heat was not too bad. The room was large enough that one could sit near the steam vent or move a bit away from it as desired. I was the only one there.
I left the steam room and sat in the open-air area to have a cup of herbal tea. Then I re-entered the sauna with a young man from France. When we both left, he showed me that there is a place for "showering" to cool down. We went down from the house on stilts to an opening where there was a large barrel of water with small plastic bowls floating on top. We dipped the bowls to pick up water, and then poured it over our bodies. It did feel nice and refreshing.
We visited for a while when we returned upstairs, because they were not ready to give us a massage yet. Then we were assigned masseurs. The same outdoor platform on stilts had a section with six beds. They put us on beds and gave us the massage. Lao massage is nicer, I think, than Thai massage. It using pressure like Thai massage, but the "torture" techniques are not used where Thai masseurs try to push and pull parts of the body into places there they normally would not go. Lao pressure involves thump or finger point pressure on muscles. It was very relaxing and felt wonderful. It rained while we were getting out massage, and the fact that it was an open platform outdoors made the experience even nicer with the sound of the rain and the fresh air it created.
When the massage ended, I asked the man who seemed to be managing the place if I could return to the sauna and was told I could. I went inside. A Lao man was there this time. Then, the manager came inside, too. Things had slowed down outside, because it was then about 17:30. His English was great, so he and I visited for almost an hour inside the sauna. He had another friend, a policeman, who arrived and joined us, but the friend did not speak any English. It was so nice, however, relaxing there and visiting with them (via translations by the manager for whatever the policeman said).
Heavy rain began just before I departed. It was obvious that it would not let up, so I just had to open my umbrella and walk in it. There were no tuk-tuks around at that hour and under those conditions. Therefore, I walked the 3 km (2 miles) back to town in the rain. My shoes and socks were completed soaked.
Rather than stop to eat, I just bought some pastries for dinner. Two were filled with pork, and the others were sweet. I ate them in the room.
Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2010--Vientiane
My head felt as if I had a hangover when I got up this morning. And my entire body felt sluggish. Maybe it was the herbs in the herbal sauna that gave me that feeling. Anyway, it was still cloudy and there was some rain, so I just stayed around the room until 11:00. Then I pushed myself to go out for a sandwich. While out, I tried to find the Chinese Market. I think I was near it, but I never came across it and didn't feel like making the effort of being sure to find it. I was able to help a French woman who was wanting the bus station; she had been walking in the opposite direction, so I got her turned around and headed the right way. I just made a giant loop and walked back to the hotel.
Feeling too tired to do anything else, I got into bed and fell into a deep sleep for about 3-4 hours. I had to force myself to get up. When I did, I was surprised to see it was already 18:00.
I walked to a nearby intersection with lots of street food stalls. One was making Phad Thai that looked good, so I ordered that. While eating, a man about my age joined me at the table. He is originally from here, but he lives in Australia now. He worked at the US Embassy when he lived in Laos. But he immigrated to Australia 35 years ago where he worked as an immigration officer for the government. He said that he returns to Laos once a year to keep contact with friends, to enjoy the foods, and to see the changes that occur here. We had a very good conversation. After eating, he gave me a walking tour of the block telling me what to eat at which restaurants. He was staying at an older hotel where he always stays, so I brought him to my hotel to show him my room which sounds as if it is a better bargain than his.
I've stayed inside since then. I don't know if I will be able to sleep well tonight or not after so much napping this afternoon.
Monday, August 09, 2010
Vientiane Has Changed!
Monday, Aug. 9, 2010—Paksan to Vientiane
After three days of sunshine, my travel day started with a light mist. Fortunately, I could walk the 500 m (500 yards) to the bus stop without having to use an umbrella. When I got there, several people were waiting for buses, but all seemed to be looking in the opposite direction. Sure enough, when a bus came ten minutes later going toward Vientiane, I was the only one to get on it. As I expected, it was full, so I, along with about five others who were already on it, had to sit on a plastic stool in the aisle.
Sitting there isn't so bad except for the times when people needed to move through the bus. About ten minutes after I was picked up, the driver stopped in the country for a roadside toilet break. Men and women from behind me needed to get by me to get off the bus and get back on. An hour later, the bus driver picked up four women selling food. They road with us for about 15 minutes squeezing up and down the aisle selling grilled chicken, roasted peanuts in shells, some kind of sweet stuffed into hallow bamboo, and drinks. All of them squeezed their way to the rear of the bus and back to the front trying to sell their products.
Two hours later, we pulled into a bus station in Vientiane under sunny skies. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the bus station in the center of town where I had hoped we would arrive. I found a man who spoke English who told me we were about 9 km (5.5 miles) away. Tuk-tuk drivers were trying to get me to let them take me, but I had no idea what the price should be. I remembered reading that a public bus went to town from the outlying bus station, so I walked out to the street and joined several others taking tuk-tuks. As I stood there, several people gave up on the bus and took tuk-tuks, but I just continued waiting. Eventually, another tuk-tuk driver who had gotten two other passengers told me he would take me to the inner-town bus station for 5000 kip (60 cents US). I knew that was a good price, because 10,000 kip was the standard price to get to the bus station in Savannakhet which was only about 3 km out of town. I jumped inside with my bag, and we were off.
Without pages from a guidebook, I had prepared last night by hand drawing a map of the city of Vientiane showing where my first and second choices of rooms were located in relation to the inner bus station. Using that map, I made my way to the tourist area of town. Because of a lack of street signs in some places, I had to ask to be sure I was at the right place a couple of times. All went well, though.
I had found a review of a new hotel last night that sounded so good that it became my first choice. It was described as modern, bright, clean, and having flat-screen TV, a/c, hot water, and free wi-fi . It said there were three levels of room—back view for $20 per night, city view for $25 per night, and river view for $35 per night. When I walked into the hotel, they had a price list on the counter with those prices. I asked to see a back view room. I was so disappointed. The room itself was perfect, but the back view meant that 3 meter (3 yards) from the window was the concrete wall of another building. It made it seem depressing and did not provide enough light for me to easily read with natural light during the afternoons. I decided to check my second choice around the corner. Their rooms were bigger, had wonderful wooden floors, and had plenty of light. However, in contrast to what I had read about them, they had wi-fi only in the lobby and not in the rooms. I returned to the first hotel and looked at a city view room. It was perfect. With the curtains open, plenty of light comes through with a view of tree tops when I recline in bed. And it even has a balcony where I sat in the evening watching people walking down the street. Therefore, I am staying at the Lao Silk Hotel in the room just above the entrance to the hotel.
Since it was noon by the time I was settled into the room, I just stayed inside and watched the TV news and read for the afternoon. I completed reading Brick Lane by Monica Ali. It is the story of a woman from Bangladesh who moved to London as a result of an arranged marriage to a man 20 years older than she. The man is one who talks too much, thinks he knows everything, and is more successful at failing than at anything else. The story follows their lives through about 15 years as they have children, she learns English, they deal with the problems of being immigrants, etc. It also follows the life of her sister who remains in Bangladesh and suffers through hardships there. From what I have learned and observed about people and life from that region, the story seems authentic. The writing is wonderful resulting in the book being shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. I gave the book 4 stars out of 4 and would highly recommend it to anyone who likes books that place them inside other cultures.
In the evening, I explored Vientiane. It was such an unusual experience for me. Normally when I return to cities I have visited before, everything is familiar and I can recall what will be where as I wander through it. That didn’t happen today. At first, nothing seemed familiar. Finally, I found one spot that I could recall—a small park with some tourist restaurants around it. Otherwise, this city has greatly changed in the past 8 years. Before, it was a backwater place that seemed more like a small regional city than a national capital. Now it is booming. The tourist district is bigger and has many new hotels. Everywhere feels and looks more sophisticated. Streets are full of western tourists. It has become a rather special place, I think.
One disappointment is that there is no riverside here right now. Vientiane has always been known for the small cafes along the riverfront where people can eat and drink in the cool air of the evenings with a sunset view over the river. The city, however, is doing something a bit surprising. They have used landfill along the river bank and are building a new park along the riverfront. I've never heard of landfill in a river before. However, the river is so wide here that I guess it won't create any problems. The park is scheduled to open in October, and it looks as if they will be ready. They are putting grass and trees in some areas already.
I stopped at a small café where I saw a pot of food that the lady said was chicken curry. It was delicious with a coconut curry sauce filled with two big pieces of chicken, bamboo shoots, noodles, carrots, etc. But it was also the spiciest dish I have eaten in a long time. I was using 3 tissues at a time—one for my nose, one for my mouth, and one for my eyes! I had thought my sinuses were fine and that I was breathing well, but after eating that curry I had so much thick drainage. It was tasty, though, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Just beside the café, women were cooking and selling fried donuts of different kinds. I bought 3—two puffy ones with filling (one chocolate and one cherry) and one that was like a cake donut with sesame seeds outside.
As I wandered around the city both before and after dinner, I noticed the new arrivals. I had stayed in Paksan so that I would not arrive late in the day when I had read there is a shortage of rooms available. That proved to be true last night. People with bags were walking the streets looking for rooms. I saw one group of 3 people approach a guest house near my restaurant only to have the man at the door saying, “We are full. No rooms available.” An hour later, the same group walked down my street as I sat on my balcony. They still had their luggage and were still looking for rooms. And they were only one group of about ten who walked down my street while I sat out there. Part of the problem is probably that they were looking for the cheap ($3-8 per night) backpacker rooms. I’m just glad that I can afford a nice place and that I got here in time to get one.
Although I only read about my hotel last night, my walk through town took me past several more new hotels that look nice. Some may be similar in price, but mine seems to be the best value place after researching them. All are “boutique” size. Among them are:
Mandalay Hotel
Lao Orchid Hotel
Salana Hotel (Just being completed and opening soon)
Chanthapanya Hotel
City Inn Vientiane
dRose One Inn
Sabaidee@Lao Hotel
Any of these would be nice places to stay for anyone traveling here, but I would recommend my place--the Lao Silk Hotel.
After three days of sunshine, my travel day started with a light mist. Fortunately, I could walk the 500 m (500 yards) to the bus stop without having to use an umbrella. When I got there, several people were waiting for buses, but all seemed to be looking in the opposite direction. Sure enough, when a bus came ten minutes later going toward Vientiane, I was the only one to get on it. As I expected, it was full, so I, along with about five others who were already on it, had to sit on a plastic stool in the aisle.
Sitting there isn't so bad except for the times when people needed to move through the bus. About ten minutes after I was picked up, the driver stopped in the country for a roadside toilet break. Men and women from behind me needed to get by me to get off the bus and get back on. An hour later, the bus driver picked up four women selling food. They road with us for about 15 minutes squeezing up and down the aisle selling grilled chicken, roasted peanuts in shells, some kind of sweet stuffed into hallow bamboo, and drinks. All of them squeezed their way to the rear of the bus and back to the front trying to sell their products.
Two hours later, we pulled into a bus station in Vientiane under sunny skies. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the bus station in the center of town where I had hoped we would arrive. I found a man who spoke English who told me we were about 9 km (5.5 miles) away. Tuk-tuk drivers were trying to get me to let them take me, but I had no idea what the price should be. I remembered reading that a public bus went to town from the outlying bus station, so I walked out to the street and joined several others taking tuk-tuks. As I stood there, several people gave up on the bus and took tuk-tuks, but I just continued waiting. Eventually, another tuk-tuk driver who had gotten two other passengers told me he would take me to the inner-town bus station for 5000 kip (60 cents US). I knew that was a good price, because 10,000 kip was the standard price to get to the bus station in Savannakhet which was only about 3 km out of town. I jumped inside with my bag, and we were off.
Without pages from a guidebook, I had prepared last night by hand drawing a map of the city of Vientiane showing where my first and second choices of rooms were located in relation to the inner bus station. Using that map, I made my way to the tourist area of town. Because of a lack of street signs in some places, I had to ask to be sure I was at the right place a couple of times. All went well, though.
I had found a review of a new hotel last night that sounded so good that it became my first choice. It was described as modern, bright, clean, and having flat-screen TV, a/c, hot water, and free wi-fi . It said there were three levels of room—back view for $20 per night, city view for $25 per night, and river view for $35 per night. When I walked into the hotel, they had a price list on the counter with those prices. I asked to see a back view room. I was so disappointed. The room itself was perfect, but the back view meant that 3 meter (3 yards) from the window was the concrete wall of another building. It made it seem depressing and did not provide enough light for me to easily read with natural light during the afternoons. I decided to check my second choice around the corner. Their rooms were bigger, had wonderful wooden floors, and had plenty of light. However, in contrast to what I had read about them, they had wi-fi only in the lobby and not in the rooms. I returned to the first hotel and looked at a city view room. It was perfect. With the curtains open, plenty of light comes through with a view of tree tops when I recline in bed. And it even has a balcony where I sat in the evening watching people walking down the street. Therefore, I am staying at the Lao Silk Hotel in the room just above the entrance to the hotel.
Since it was noon by the time I was settled into the room, I just stayed inside and watched the TV news and read for the afternoon. I completed reading Brick Lane by Monica Ali. It is the story of a woman from Bangladesh who moved to London as a result of an arranged marriage to a man 20 years older than she. The man is one who talks too much, thinks he knows everything, and is more successful at failing than at anything else. The story follows their lives through about 15 years as they have children, she learns English, they deal with the problems of being immigrants, etc. It also follows the life of her sister who remains in Bangladesh and suffers through hardships there. From what I have learned and observed about people and life from that region, the story seems authentic. The writing is wonderful resulting in the book being shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. I gave the book 4 stars out of 4 and would highly recommend it to anyone who likes books that place them inside other cultures.
In the evening, I explored Vientiane. It was such an unusual experience for me. Normally when I return to cities I have visited before, everything is familiar and I can recall what will be where as I wander through it. That didn’t happen today. At first, nothing seemed familiar. Finally, I found one spot that I could recall—a small park with some tourist restaurants around it. Otherwise, this city has greatly changed in the past 8 years. Before, it was a backwater place that seemed more like a small regional city than a national capital. Now it is booming. The tourist district is bigger and has many new hotels. Everywhere feels and looks more sophisticated. Streets are full of western tourists. It has become a rather special place, I think.
One disappointment is that there is no riverside here right now. Vientiane has always been known for the small cafes along the riverfront where people can eat and drink in the cool air of the evenings with a sunset view over the river. The city, however, is doing something a bit surprising. They have used landfill along the river bank and are building a new park along the riverfront. I've never heard of landfill in a river before. However, the river is so wide here that I guess it won't create any problems. The park is scheduled to open in October, and it looks as if they will be ready. They are putting grass and trees in some areas already.
I stopped at a small café where I saw a pot of food that the lady said was chicken curry. It was delicious with a coconut curry sauce filled with two big pieces of chicken, bamboo shoots, noodles, carrots, etc. But it was also the spiciest dish I have eaten in a long time. I was using 3 tissues at a time—one for my nose, one for my mouth, and one for my eyes! I had thought my sinuses were fine and that I was breathing well, but after eating that curry I had so much thick drainage. It was tasty, though, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Just beside the café, women were cooking and selling fried donuts of different kinds. I bought 3—two puffy ones with filling (one chocolate and one cherry) and one that was like a cake donut with sesame seeds outside.
As I wandered around the city both before and after dinner, I noticed the new arrivals. I had stayed in Paksan so that I would not arrive late in the day when I had read there is a shortage of rooms available. That proved to be true last night. People with bags were walking the streets looking for rooms. I saw one group of 3 people approach a guest house near my restaurant only to have the man at the door saying, “We are full. No rooms available.” An hour later, the same group walked down my street as I sat on my balcony. They still had their luggage and were still looking for rooms. And they were only one group of about ten who walked down my street while I sat out there. Part of the problem is probably that they were looking for the cheap ($3-8 per night) backpacker rooms. I’m just glad that I can afford a nice place and that I got here in time to get one.
Although I only read about my hotel last night, my walk through town took me past several more new hotels that look nice. Some may be similar in price, but mine seems to be the best value place after researching them. All are “boutique” size. Among them are:
Mandalay Hotel
Lao Orchid Hotel
Salana Hotel (Just being completed and opening soon)
Chanthapanya Hotel
City Inn Vientiane
dRose One Inn
Sabaidee@Lao Hotel
Any of these would be nice places to stay for anyone traveling here, but I would recommend my place--the Lao Silk Hotel.
Sunday, August 08, 2010
Sunday in Pakxan/Paksan
Sunday, Aug. 8, 2010--Pakxan/Paksan
The reason for the two spellings is that there is no agreement for how to spell Lao (or Thai) words in western letters. Therefore, it is common to see multiple spellings which still would be pronounced similarly. These are the two common ways of spelling the town where I am now.
This was the third straight day of sunny weather. That means that it is getting hotter each day and that today was especially hot. Still, I managed to go out walking in the morning for about 3 hours. I started by looking for a place to get a sandwich. I found one, and it was slightly different from ones I have had elsewhere. Unfortunately, this lady put pieces of pork fat in hers. I just picked them out and threw them away. But she put better quality meat and pâté that seemed to be homemade into hers. She also put a light product of some kind (looked like beige fiberglass) on it at the end.
I walked to the south of the city and quickly found myself in the countryside. I saw a village to the left and walked down a road toward it. I came to a school and a stadium, but then the road was covered with a big puddle of water that was impassable on foot. I reversed myself and found a quiet road heading further south. Everyone was friendly along the way. Eventually, I came to a temple. It seemed very quiet because on Sunday the monks can sleep late and have no duties. But one novice saw me and said, "Hello." Soon he was downstairs and talking to me along with a couple of local boys who had been visiting with him. Eventually four monks were talking to me. It was the usual story. They all have plans and hopes for the future and are using their time as a monk to help them get an education they would not otherwise get. It was pleasant to be able to talk with someone, however. Coming back to the hotel was difficult because it was so hot. I passed a home where a woman was selling small fried pastries filled with cream, and I bought 6 of them (1000 kip each or 6 for 5000). After making it back to the hotel, I was so hot that I drank a whole liter of water.
The Paksan Hotel is really rather nice even though I am staying in their basic room. It has a casino (mostly slot machines from what I can see through the windows), a sauna, a scenic river running just behind it, and an outdoor restaurant beside the river. There is a large staff--more than there are guests!
There was a restaurant I saw this morning while walking that looked nice, so I decided to go back to it for dinner. There was thunder and rain in the distance, but I took my umbrella and just hoped I could eat and get back before getting soaked. Fortunately, the restaurant was empty when I arrived and ordered. Just 5 minutes later, however, about 20 young South Koreans arrived. A couple of them started talking to me, and they told me they are all volunteers here in a program that South Korean has that is similar to the Peace Corps in the US. Many of them are teachers. One of them I was speaking to teaches taekwondo. I guess it is a PE class. Most, however, taught normal school subjects. They have been here for a year and have another year to go. They told me that I had chosen the best restaurant in town. I was glad to hear that. The food was good, too, although I only had fried rice with pork. She served it with a nice spicy sauce on the side which I used completely to spike the dish!!
Tomorrow, I will catch the bus to Vientiane, the capital of the country. It is a rather small city, however, and does not have the look or feel of a capital city. I have been there before. I hope I can find a decent place to stay. It should be easier, since I will arrive in the late morning just as people are checking out of the best places. I have my choices made and just have to try to get to them and find the one I think will be right for me after seeing them.
The reason for the two spellings is that there is no agreement for how to spell Lao (or Thai) words in western letters. Therefore, it is common to see multiple spellings which still would be pronounced similarly. These are the two common ways of spelling the town where I am now.
This was the third straight day of sunny weather. That means that it is getting hotter each day and that today was especially hot. Still, I managed to go out walking in the morning for about 3 hours. I started by looking for a place to get a sandwich. I found one, and it was slightly different from ones I have had elsewhere. Unfortunately, this lady put pieces of pork fat in hers. I just picked them out and threw them away. But she put better quality meat and pâté that seemed to be homemade into hers. She also put a light product of some kind (looked like beige fiberglass) on it at the end.
I walked to the south of the city and quickly found myself in the countryside. I saw a village to the left and walked down a road toward it. I came to a school and a stadium, but then the road was covered with a big puddle of water that was impassable on foot. I reversed myself and found a quiet road heading further south. Everyone was friendly along the way. Eventually, I came to a temple. It seemed very quiet because on Sunday the monks can sleep late and have no duties. But one novice saw me and said, "Hello." Soon he was downstairs and talking to me along with a couple of local boys who had been visiting with him. Eventually four monks were talking to me. It was the usual story. They all have plans and hopes for the future and are using their time as a monk to help them get an education they would not otherwise get. It was pleasant to be able to talk with someone, however. Coming back to the hotel was difficult because it was so hot. I passed a home where a woman was selling small fried pastries filled with cream, and I bought 6 of them (1000 kip each or 6 for 5000). After making it back to the hotel, I was so hot that I drank a whole liter of water.
The Paksan Hotel is really rather nice even though I am staying in their basic room. It has a casino (mostly slot machines from what I can see through the windows), a sauna, a scenic river running just behind it, and an outdoor restaurant beside the river. There is a large staff--more than there are guests!
There was a restaurant I saw this morning while walking that looked nice, so I decided to go back to it for dinner. There was thunder and rain in the distance, but I took my umbrella and just hoped I could eat and get back before getting soaked. Fortunately, the restaurant was empty when I arrived and ordered. Just 5 minutes later, however, about 20 young South Koreans arrived. A couple of them started talking to me, and they told me they are all volunteers here in a program that South Korean has that is similar to the Peace Corps in the US. Many of them are teachers. One of them I was speaking to teaches taekwondo. I guess it is a PE class. Most, however, taught normal school subjects. They have been here for a year and have another year to go. They told me that I had chosen the best restaurant in town. I was glad to hear that. The food was good, too, although I only had fried rice with pork. She served it with a nice spicy sauce on the side which I used completely to spike the dish!!
Tomorrow, I will catch the bus to Vientiane, the capital of the country. It is a rather small city, however, and does not have the look or feel of a capital city. I have been there before. I hope I can find a decent place to stay. It should be easier, since I will arrive in the late morning just as people are checking out of the best places. I have my choices made and just have to try to get to them and find the one I think will be right for me after seeing them.
Saturday, August 07, 2010
Sabaidee
Friday, Aug. 6, 2010—Savannakhet
It was a beautiful day of sunshine with no rain. I should have traveled, I guess, but I enjoyed being here in Savannakhet. I made another excursion out of town. This time I went south. Soon I was on a local road and entering a small village with unpaved streets. As usual, everyone was surprised to see a tourist walking there. A couple of people asked where I was going, but they accepted my statement that I was just walking to see the area as they have done before on other walks.
The village had a Buddhist Temple. I went inside to see it and take a few photos. There was one young monk about who kept watching me. I walked toward him and asked if he spoke English, and he did (to a certain extent). He invited me to sit, and we visited for over an hour. But it wasn’t just the two of us. Gradually other monks and novices arrived (One is a novice until 20 and then becomes a monk.) Maybe a total of 8 were involved over time with all but one of them being 19 or 20; the other was 25. They had lots of questions, and I tried to answer them. They couldn’t always understand my answers, however. They were nice young men. Most of them come from poor families and have become monks to get an education. Two said they wanted to be lawyers. The original one I met is studying physics at the university. Another two said they want to become English teachers.
By the time I returned to my hotel around 13:00, the day was getting hot due to there being no cloud cover. I read and watched TV until the evening. Then I headed to the river. I have been there several times during the daytime, but most evenings there has been rain. With clouds in the distant but clear skies still above, I thought I should go see the sunset over the Mekong and watch the people dining there.
I returned to the same restaurant where I had eaten last night. Tonight, I had a much better meal, however. It was steamed rice with spicy pork. There were thin slices of pork in a sauce with green onions, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, red peppers, etc. With it, I got a bowl of soup and a small banana.
As I returned to the room, I realized that there is one aspect of Savannakhet I do not mind leaving behind. They have too many loose dogs in this town, and many of them want to be aggressive. As soon as I turn toward them and challenge them, they back away, but it is a hassle having to deal with them.
Saturday, Aug. 7, 2010—Savannakhet to Paksan
I jumped awake from a nightmare this morning. I dreamed I was teaching and it was the beginning of the semester. I had been busy on something, and suddenly realized it was 19:03, and my class was scheduled to start at 19:00. I quickly grabbed my things which I had previously organized for teaching the class. However, I had not received a class roll or anything else to tell me the room number for it. I started searching for a class schedule. When I found one, it was so poorly designed with artistic spots of splattered paint that it was hardly readable and only had a few classes listed on each page. I couldn’t find my class listed. Finally, I appealed to some students who were nearby, and one had a “normal” class schedule and looked the classroom up. By the time I got that information, however, it was already 19:30 and I was sure that my students had decided I was not coming to class and had left. That’s when I jumped awake.
That was 5:56. I turned on CNN to hear the headlines and quickly took a shower. By 6:20, I was checking out of the hotel. Within a couple of more minutes I had a tuk-tuk to the bus station. I arrived there at 6:30, and the next bus toward Vientiane was leaving in 15 minutes. Perfect timing.
Of course, my plan was not to go to Vientiane. Even with such an early bus, it wouldn’t arrive in the capital until about 16:30-17:00. I just didn’t want to be looking for a room at that time, especially since Vientiane has the reputation of rooms “selling out” before the end of the day. Therefore, I bought my ticket to Paksan, a town about 150 km (90 miles) from Vientiane.
It was another SLOW local bus. After 1 hr. 15 min., we had only traveled 35 km (21 miles). Throughout the trip, we seemed to stop at least once an hour for a break for buying food, going to the bathroom, picking up people at a station, etc. For the first two hours, I sat next to Grandpa Saly who had only two teeth and was 74 years old. He was a slender, jovial man who spoke English quite well. He was excited because he was going to a village where he two sons live to spend the weekend with them and his grandkids.
We arrived in Paksan at 14:30. It was HOT, since today also had clear skies. The town is spread out. I had seen a small hotel and a guest house on the edge of town, but I hadn’t noticed anything else. Where the bus stopped, there was a sign for a guest house, so I followed the road. But then it branched into a dirt road going straight and a paved road going to the left. There was no sign to indicate which way the guest house would be. Therefore, I returned to the main road and walked back toward where I had seen the other places. About halfway there, I saw the huge, fancy hotel on one side of the road and a sign for another guest house to the right. I checked the fancy Paksan Hotel. They had some very nice rooms at very high prices. But they also had some basic rooms (hot water and fan, but no a/c or TV) for only $6. And the whole hotel has free wi-fi. So I took one of the basic rooms.
Until it cooled down around 17:30, I went through e-mail and read newspapers online. Then I went out walking and exploring. I got LOTS of attention. This is NOT a place where there are usually tourists. The hotel where I am staying is mainly for travelers stopping overnight on their way north or south on the main highway through the country. The people at the big market seemed most surprised to see a westerner walking around. But there seemed to be a pleasant reaction from everyone. People were very friendly. Everyone said, “Sabaidee,” and I said it back in return.
There are few restaurants in this town. I went back to a place near my hotel where there were three small eating establishments together. I bought a vegetable dish that consisted of bamboo shoots, mushrooms, red peppers, and a little bit of pork to season it in a sauce. And I got a basket of sticky rice to go with it.
As I have wandered all over southern Laos now, I have noticed a large number of huge, modern homes. I am sure they belong to the parents of children who have immigrated to the U.S., France, or Australia. It is quite common for Asian immigrants to send money back regularly to their parents—not just for their support but also so that the parents can build grand homes to impress their friends with how successful their children have been. These homes which are usually built of concrete, bricks, tile, etc., are quite impressive compared to the small wooden and woven cane homes on stilts.
I think I have had another spurt of weight loss. My shorts I have been wearing seem much bigger in the waist in the last two weeks. I now have little body fat. My guess is that I probably weigh about 74 kg (163 lbs). But it could be less than that. I don’t know, however, with those fattening French/Lao sandwiches I have been eating each morning. I’m glad I only had one meal today!
It was a beautiful day of sunshine with no rain. I should have traveled, I guess, but I enjoyed being here in Savannakhet. I made another excursion out of town. This time I went south. Soon I was on a local road and entering a small village with unpaved streets. As usual, everyone was surprised to see a tourist walking there. A couple of people asked where I was going, but they accepted my statement that I was just walking to see the area as they have done before on other walks.
The village had a Buddhist Temple. I went inside to see it and take a few photos. There was one young monk about who kept watching me. I walked toward him and asked if he spoke English, and he did (to a certain extent). He invited me to sit, and we visited for over an hour. But it wasn’t just the two of us. Gradually other monks and novices arrived (One is a novice until 20 and then becomes a monk.) Maybe a total of 8 were involved over time with all but one of them being 19 or 20; the other was 25. They had lots of questions, and I tried to answer them. They couldn’t always understand my answers, however. They were nice young men. Most of them come from poor families and have become monks to get an education. Two said they wanted to be lawyers. The original one I met is studying physics at the university. Another two said they want to become English teachers.
By the time I returned to my hotel around 13:00, the day was getting hot due to there being no cloud cover. I read and watched TV until the evening. Then I headed to the river. I have been there several times during the daytime, but most evenings there has been rain. With clouds in the distant but clear skies still above, I thought I should go see the sunset over the Mekong and watch the people dining there.
I returned to the same restaurant where I had eaten last night. Tonight, I had a much better meal, however. It was steamed rice with spicy pork. There were thin slices of pork in a sauce with green onions, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots, red peppers, etc. With it, I got a bowl of soup and a small banana.
As I returned to the room, I realized that there is one aspect of Savannakhet I do not mind leaving behind. They have too many loose dogs in this town, and many of them want to be aggressive. As soon as I turn toward them and challenge them, they back away, but it is a hassle having to deal with them.
Saturday, Aug. 7, 2010—Savannakhet to Paksan
I jumped awake from a nightmare this morning. I dreamed I was teaching and it was the beginning of the semester. I had been busy on something, and suddenly realized it was 19:03, and my class was scheduled to start at 19:00. I quickly grabbed my things which I had previously organized for teaching the class. However, I had not received a class roll or anything else to tell me the room number for it. I started searching for a class schedule. When I found one, it was so poorly designed with artistic spots of splattered paint that it was hardly readable and only had a few classes listed on each page. I couldn’t find my class listed. Finally, I appealed to some students who were nearby, and one had a “normal” class schedule and looked the classroom up. By the time I got that information, however, it was already 19:30 and I was sure that my students had decided I was not coming to class and had left. That’s when I jumped awake.
That was 5:56. I turned on CNN to hear the headlines and quickly took a shower. By 6:20, I was checking out of the hotel. Within a couple of more minutes I had a tuk-tuk to the bus station. I arrived there at 6:30, and the next bus toward Vientiane was leaving in 15 minutes. Perfect timing.
Of course, my plan was not to go to Vientiane. Even with such an early bus, it wouldn’t arrive in the capital until about 16:30-17:00. I just didn’t want to be looking for a room at that time, especially since Vientiane has the reputation of rooms “selling out” before the end of the day. Therefore, I bought my ticket to Paksan, a town about 150 km (90 miles) from Vientiane.
It was another SLOW local bus. After 1 hr. 15 min., we had only traveled 35 km (21 miles). Throughout the trip, we seemed to stop at least once an hour for a break for buying food, going to the bathroom, picking up people at a station, etc. For the first two hours, I sat next to Grandpa Saly who had only two teeth and was 74 years old. He was a slender, jovial man who spoke English quite well. He was excited because he was going to a village where he two sons live to spend the weekend with them and his grandkids.
We arrived in Paksan at 14:30. It was HOT, since today also had clear skies. The town is spread out. I had seen a small hotel and a guest house on the edge of town, but I hadn’t noticed anything else. Where the bus stopped, there was a sign for a guest house, so I followed the road. But then it branched into a dirt road going straight and a paved road going to the left. There was no sign to indicate which way the guest house would be. Therefore, I returned to the main road and walked back toward where I had seen the other places. About halfway there, I saw the huge, fancy hotel on one side of the road and a sign for another guest house to the right. I checked the fancy Paksan Hotel. They had some very nice rooms at very high prices. But they also had some basic rooms (hot water and fan, but no a/c or TV) for only $6. And the whole hotel has free wi-fi. So I took one of the basic rooms.
Until it cooled down around 17:30, I went through e-mail and read newspapers online. Then I went out walking and exploring. I got LOTS of attention. This is NOT a place where there are usually tourists. The hotel where I am staying is mainly for travelers stopping overnight on their way north or south on the main highway through the country. The people at the big market seemed most surprised to see a westerner walking around. But there seemed to be a pleasant reaction from everyone. People were very friendly. Everyone said, “Sabaidee,” and I said it back in return.
There are few restaurants in this town. I went back to a place near my hotel where there were three small eating establishments together. I bought a vegetable dish that consisted of bamboo shoots, mushrooms, red peppers, and a little bit of pork to season it in a sauce. And I got a basket of sticky rice to go with it.
As I have wandered all over southern Laos now, I have noticed a large number of huge, modern homes. I am sure they belong to the parents of children who have immigrated to the U.S., France, or Australia. It is quite common for Asian immigrants to send money back regularly to their parents—not just for their support but also so that the parents can build grand homes to impress their friends with how successful their children have been. These homes which are usually built of concrete, bricks, tile, etc., are quite impressive compared to the small wooden and woven cane homes on stilts.
I think I have had another spurt of weight loss. My shorts I have been wearing seem much bigger in the waist in the last two weeks. I now have little body fat. My guess is that I probably weigh about 74 kg (163 lbs). But it could be less than that. I don’t know, however, with those fattening French/Lao sandwiches I have been eating each morning. I’m glad I only had one meal today!
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Making Travel Plans
Wednesday, Aug. 43, 2010—Savannakhet
After picking up another pâté sandwich to eat while walking, I headed for the countryside. My guidebook had talked about the city being a mixture of Vietnamese, Cambodians, Chinese, and Laotians. And it had said that just short walks out of town would bring one to villages that were pure Lao. I worked my way eastward toward the countryside, since the town itself is very long going north and south and the Mekong River is to the west. After a few blocks, I was on the edge of town and walking beside the runway for the airport. Just as I turned onto another road, a passenger plane roared just above my head coming in for a landing. Through trial and error, I finally found my way to the small neighborhoods on the edge of town and separate villages beyond it. Of course, they were not used to having westerners walk there. Everyone was especially friendly for this reason, but one man suspiciously asked me where I was going. He seemed satisfied when I said I was just walking to see the countryside and the villages.
After having explored one wat (Buddhist temple) in a village, I passed another with a tall drum tower. I went inside to take photos of the tower and to see the buildings. A young monk approached me and said, “Hello.” Then he said more which let me know he spoke English. He asked if I would sit and talk with him for a while. The wat grounds were peaceful and shaded by large trees, so we sat on a bench in the shade and visited. It was interesting to hear about his life. He is 20 now and has been a monk for five years. He left home to be a monk because he was from a large family in a poor village. He only gets to go home twice a year for one-week visits with his family. Otherwise, he lives at the wat. It is common, however, that families seen sons to live in wats so they can have better lives. This young man named Ring Ling is studying at the local teacher college to be a secondary teacher of environmental science. His goal is to eventually be able to leave the temple and lead a secular life teaching in his village school and taking care of his parents. Although it would have been interesting to talk longer, two of the monks rang the drums on the tower to indicate it was 11:30 and time for them to eat. Monks only get to eat two meals per day—an early breakfast and another just before noon. They are not allowed to have any food after noon each day. Therefore, we said good-bye and I departed so that he could have his meal with the other monks.
After returning to town, I stayed in my room during the heat of the afternoon watching a movie on HBO and reading from a novel. I went back out around 16:00 hoping to ask a question at the tourist office, but they had already closed when I got there. I walked a block further to the Mekong riverfront, and the rains came. I ducked under the awning of a bank building and waited for them to pass. Instead of passing, they got worse. After 45 minutes of waiting, I realized I was just going to have to try to make my way back to the hotel in it all. By that time, streets were flooded. I was wearing shoes and socks, so I just removed them and carried them while wading my way back.
By 19:00, the rain had stopped again. I went in search of dinner, but I didn’t want to go too far due to skies that still looked threatening. Just 1 1/2 blocks from my hotel I found a vegetarian restaurant selling soup. It was a big bowl full with lots of noodles, mushrooms, bean sprouts, and other vegetables. And it was SPICY without my having said anything or added anything. Fortunately, the tables in restaurants here have tissues to use as napkins. My sinuses were so clear after finishing that bowl of soup!
A young Vietnamese man on a motorcycle stopped and spoke to me as I returned to my room. I didn’t trust him. He may have been nice, but I noticed he seemed a bit disappointed when I told him I had just eaten. My guess is that he was being friendly in hopes I would treat him to dinner and maybe drinking. I had a short, friendly conversation, then I told him I was tired from all my walking during the day and needed to go to my room.
Thursday, Aug. 5, 2010—Savannakhet
From here to Vientiane, my next planned stop, is too long for me to look forward to making the trip. I can take a local bus leaving in the mornings which will take 9-11 hours. Or I can take a night sleeper bus at 21:00 which will arrive there at 5:30. Neither appeals to me because of the timing. If I take a day bus, I won’t arrive in Vientiane until late afternoon or early evening. Getting a room there is not so easy. Guest houses, especially, are difficult to find because they fill each day with new people who are not permanent residents of Thailand to get new Thai visas (which requires at least one overnight stay). Taking the night bus doesn’t appeal to me because I don’t want to check out of my room at noon and figure out how to spend the next 9 hours waiting for the bus and because I don’t want to arrive at 5:30 in Vientiane and wait hours before I can check into a guest house or hotel.
My first stop, therefore, was at the tourist office this morning to see if there is some place between here and Vientiane where I could stop for one night. Unfortunately, there is no mid-point. My only choices are to travel 150 km and stay overnight with another 300 km to go the next day or to travel 350 km the first day and have only 150 km remaining for the next day. I have chosen the latter, since the former still would result in a long travel day getting me to Vientiane too late to be assured of easily finding a room. So when I leave Savannakhet, I will take a bus to Pakxan. It’s not popular with western tourists, but the tourist office told me there are guest houses there. It will take me maybe 6-8 hours to get there. Then the next day, I can catch a morning bus to Vientiane so that I arrive there around noon.
I am thinking of waiting here in Savannakhet another day before departing. Since I didn’t get a visa to allow me to enter Thailand earlier, I really have too many days here in Laos. My room here in Savannakhet is inexpensive and nice, so it just makes sense to spend an extra day here before moving onward.
This city is filled with colonial buildings that need restoring. A few have been restored and are so beautiful—an old hospital building, some governmental buildings, some private homes that have been turned into guest houses or restaurants, etc. The city had been a major regional headquarters area for the French. And many Chinese and Vietnamese had come here to operate businesses. But the French War caused the French to leave, then the communist takeover caused the businessmen with money (mostly Chinese and Vietnamese) to cross over into Thailand. That resulted in the city being greatly abandoned and being of less importance. Even today, there are many buildings that are still abandoned or vacant. If this city were in a capitalist country, people would be coming here to buy the old buildings and restore them. But with the communists still in power, there is just no incentive for anyone to want to do much. I spent much of the morning taking photos of these buildings—the ones that need restoring and the ones that have been restored.
A few tourists do come here. Many of those, however, are people making visa renewal runs from Thailand so that they can continue to live there. But in general, the tourists skip this town visiting only the islands in the south (Don Dhet, Don Khon, and Don Konge), Vientiane, Vang Viang, and Luang Prabang. The latter is also filled with old colonial architecture. Residents have renews the structures and gotten a World Heritage Site designation there, so it has captured the tourists who are interested in such things. To come to Savannakhet, they have to be more interested in faded glory rather than restored glory.
I did meet a German man living here as I walked this morning, however. But he is not living here because he loves the place or has hopes of developing tourism. It was 10:00, and he waved hello and started talking to me. He was drunk and drinking another big beer. He lived in Thailand and had a wife there for 12 years. Now he is here. He was very unhappy. Regarding Thailand, he said that all they want is your money if you are a foreigner living there. Then he implied that living here was no better. He questioned where someone could live indicating he had problems with Germany, too, and would have difficulty accepting life in the US if he had the chance to live there. It as impossible to have a good conversation, so I told him I thought I should walk more because the rain might come back again soon.
Had Phad Thai this evening for dinner. It was a nice change. I didn't have it throughout the time I was in Thailand; it was never on the menu at the small places where I ate. Got a nice "fingerling" banana for dessert afterwards. The cyber cafe has homemade yogurt with honey. I plan to have that for dessert after I finish being online.
After picking up another pâté sandwich to eat while walking, I headed for the countryside. My guidebook had talked about the city being a mixture of Vietnamese, Cambodians, Chinese, and Laotians. And it had said that just short walks out of town would bring one to villages that were pure Lao. I worked my way eastward toward the countryside, since the town itself is very long going north and south and the Mekong River is to the west. After a few blocks, I was on the edge of town and walking beside the runway for the airport. Just as I turned onto another road, a passenger plane roared just above my head coming in for a landing. Through trial and error, I finally found my way to the small neighborhoods on the edge of town and separate villages beyond it. Of course, they were not used to having westerners walk there. Everyone was especially friendly for this reason, but one man suspiciously asked me where I was going. He seemed satisfied when I said I was just walking to see the countryside and the villages.
After having explored one wat (Buddhist temple) in a village, I passed another with a tall drum tower. I went inside to take photos of the tower and to see the buildings. A young monk approached me and said, “Hello.” Then he said more which let me know he spoke English. He asked if I would sit and talk with him for a while. The wat grounds were peaceful and shaded by large trees, so we sat on a bench in the shade and visited. It was interesting to hear about his life. He is 20 now and has been a monk for five years. He left home to be a monk because he was from a large family in a poor village. He only gets to go home twice a year for one-week visits with his family. Otherwise, he lives at the wat. It is common, however, that families seen sons to live in wats so they can have better lives. This young man named Ring Ling is studying at the local teacher college to be a secondary teacher of environmental science. His goal is to eventually be able to leave the temple and lead a secular life teaching in his village school and taking care of his parents. Although it would have been interesting to talk longer, two of the monks rang the drums on the tower to indicate it was 11:30 and time for them to eat. Monks only get to eat two meals per day—an early breakfast and another just before noon. They are not allowed to have any food after noon each day. Therefore, we said good-bye and I departed so that he could have his meal with the other monks.
After returning to town, I stayed in my room during the heat of the afternoon watching a movie on HBO and reading from a novel. I went back out around 16:00 hoping to ask a question at the tourist office, but they had already closed when I got there. I walked a block further to the Mekong riverfront, and the rains came. I ducked under the awning of a bank building and waited for them to pass. Instead of passing, they got worse. After 45 minutes of waiting, I realized I was just going to have to try to make my way back to the hotel in it all. By that time, streets were flooded. I was wearing shoes and socks, so I just removed them and carried them while wading my way back.
By 19:00, the rain had stopped again. I went in search of dinner, but I didn’t want to go too far due to skies that still looked threatening. Just 1 1/2 blocks from my hotel I found a vegetarian restaurant selling soup. It was a big bowl full with lots of noodles, mushrooms, bean sprouts, and other vegetables. And it was SPICY without my having said anything or added anything. Fortunately, the tables in restaurants here have tissues to use as napkins. My sinuses were so clear after finishing that bowl of soup!
A young Vietnamese man on a motorcycle stopped and spoke to me as I returned to my room. I didn’t trust him. He may have been nice, but I noticed he seemed a bit disappointed when I told him I had just eaten. My guess is that he was being friendly in hopes I would treat him to dinner and maybe drinking. I had a short, friendly conversation, then I told him I was tired from all my walking during the day and needed to go to my room.
Thursday, Aug. 5, 2010—Savannakhet
From here to Vientiane, my next planned stop, is too long for me to look forward to making the trip. I can take a local bus leaving in the mornings which will take 9-11 hours. Or I can take a night sleeper bus at 21:00 which will arrive there at 5:30. Neither appeals to me because of the timing. If I take a day bus, I won’t arrive in Vientiane until late afternoon or early evening. Getting a room there is not so easy. Guest houses, especially, are difficult to find because they fill each day with new people who are not permanent residents of Thailand to get new Thai visas (which requires at least one overnight stay). Taking the night bus doesn’t appeal to me because I don’t want to check out of my room at noon and figure out how to spend the next 9 hours waiting for the bus and because I don’t want to arrive at 5:30 in Vientiane and wait hours before I can check into a guest house or hotel.
My first stop, therefore, was at the tourist office this morning to see if there is some place between here and Vientiane where I could stop for one night. Unfortunately, there is no mid-point. My only choices are to travel 150 km and stay overnight with another 300 km to go the next day or to travel 350 km the first day and have only 150 km remaining for the next day. I have chosen the latter, since the former still would result in a long travel day getting me to Vientiane too late to be assured of easily finding a room. So when I leave Savannakhet, I will take a bus to Pakxan. It’s not popular with western tourists, but the tourist office told me there are guest houses there. It will take me maybe 6-8 hours to get there. Then the next day, I can catch a morning bus to Vientiane so that I arrive there around noon.
I am thinking of waiting here in Savannakhet another day before departing. Since I didn’t get a visa to allow me to enter Thailand earlier, I really have too many days here in Laos. My room here in Savannakhet is inexpensive and nice, so it just makes sense to spend an extra day here before moving onward.
This city is filled with colonial buildings that need restoring. A few have been restored and are so beautiful—an old hospital building, some governmental buildings, some private homes that have been turned into guest houses or restaurants, etc. The city had been a major regional headquarters area for the French. And many Chinese and Vietnamese had come here to operate businesses. But the French War caused the French to leave, then the communist takeover caused the businessmen with money (mostly Chinese and Vietnamese) to cross over into Thailand. That resulted in the city being greatly abandoned and being of less importance. Even today, there are many buildings that are still abandoned or vacant. If this city were in a capitalist country, people would be coming here to buy the old buildings and restore them. But with the communists still in power, there is just no incentive for anyone to want to do much. I spent much of the morning taking photos of these buildings—the ones that need restoring and the ones that have been restored.
A few tourists do come here. Many of those, however, are people making visa renewal runs from Thailand so that they can continue to live there. But in general, the tourists skip this town visiting only the islands in the south (Don Dhet, Don Khon, and Don Konge), Vientiane, Vang Viang, and Luang Prabang. The latter is also filled with old colonial architecture. Residents have renews the structures and gotten a World Heritage Site designation there, so it has captured the tourists who are interested in such things. To come to Savannakhet, they have to be more interested in faded glory rather than restored glory.
I did meet a German man living here as I walked this morning, however. But he is not living here because he loves the place or has hopes of developing tourism. It was 10:00, and he waved hello and started talking to me. He was drunk and drinking another big beer. He lived in Thailand and had a wife there for 12 years. Now he is here. He was very unhappy. Regarding Thailand, he said that all they want is your money if you are a foreigner living there. Then he implied that living here was no better. He questioned where someone could live indicating he had problems with Germany, too, and would have difficulty accepting life in the US if he had the chance to live there. It as impossible to have a good conversation, so I told him I thought I should walk more because the rain might come back again soon.
Had Phad Thai this evening for dinner. It was a nice change. I didn't have it throughout the time I was in Thailand; it was never on the menu at the small places where I ate. Got a nice "fingerling" banana for dessert afterwards. The cyber cafe has homemade yogurt with honey. I plan to have that for dessert after I finish being online.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Lady Boys
Monday, Aug. 2, 2010—Don Khon to Savannakket
Now that I am leaving Don Khon, I wish I were going to be here another day or two. The reason is a friend I have made. He’s Ham, the man who owns a cyber café and sold me and my neighbor our boat tickets to leave the island. I’ve talked with him for a moment or two every day. But last night, we talked longer. Somehow, he got the idea I was strong. Maybe it’s because my legs are so fit from walking. Anyway, he started talking about that and our conversation quickly went to a nice back-and-forth repartee. He’s charming and intelligent. Then this morning we started the give-and-take teasing and talking more. He was asking me to promise to come back to Laos again next year.
We got an extra tour on the boat, because it took a couple from Don Khon to the neighboring island of Don Dhet. Then we returned to Don Khon to pick up more people. The reason Ham put us on the boat early was that we could get on it then at a more convenient site that was easier for Veronique, my neighbor, to handle. We got to see the people bathing in the river, floating in the river, eating at riverside restaurants, etc. Except for the seats being so hard and it adding to the length of a day that was already going to be a long travel day, it was wonderful.
When we got to the mainland, it was time to separate from Veronique. We had to quickly say good-bye to each other due to the fact that we were leaving by vans operated by different companies. She was being rushed off to her place, and I was having trouble finding my pre-paid ticket. We yelled good-bye to each other and never even exchanged ways of communicating with each other in the future.
Fortunately, I found my ticket. I had put it in a different pocket of my bag last night. There had really been no rush, however. We continued to wait about 20 minutes for more people before we loaded the van and left.
I sat beside Nikolai, a 17-year-old German. He was so impressive. He just finished school in Germany and is waiting to enter university hoping to be accepted to either medical school or dental school. Although he is young, he speaks English so well and is traveling on his own. He was aware of how long he had to stay in Laos before returning to Thailand due to the 15-day rule that Thailand has for lengths of stays when entering via an overland route. He had a good plan for where he would visit. He was very conscientious of the budget that he needed to follow and was staying within it. He did not have a cell phone or a computer with him and did not seem to miss being connected to his friends through them. It would not be easy to find an American that age who could do what he is doing in the way he is doing it. Our conversation helped make that part of the trip pass much faster than it would have seemed otherwise.
There were only two of us on the van going to Savannakhet. With more passengers, they would have had the van continue. Instead, they stopped at a bus station and put us on a local bus go make the rest of the trip. That made the rest of our travel interesting but so very long!
We left the station and went only a short distance where we went into a local neighborhood. The bus stopped at a house where they were tying the tops of many large baskets. They were filled with iced-down fish. They loaded all those baskets filling the entire open storage space below. It took a long time for them to do it. Then, the bus traveled at very slow speeds honking to get the attention of anyone who might want to go the direction we were going. About an hour later, we pulled into another bus station. There, a large pickup with side railings pulled up beside us. It was filled with big bags of fruit. The bus employees began unloading the truck by placing the fruit on the roof of the bus. Then they had to attach a rope netting to make sure the bags of fruit stayed in place. With the weight of the fish and the fruit, I worried that we might have tire trouble along the way.
Just before dark the bus was still crawling along trying to find more passengers, and we were still 145 km (87 miles) from Savannakhet. We were waved down by a group of people with motorcycles. I don’t know if they had tired, or if they had encountered problems with one or more of the cycles. But suddenly, someone was on the roof rearranging the fruit. Then he threw down a rope which was tied to the front wheel of one of the cycles. Then about six men working together lifted and pulled the motorcycle onto the roof. Then the process was repeated three more times for the rest of the bikes. The people boarded the bus, and we took off again with even more weight and being even more behind in schedule.
After dark, the bus finally speeded up. But it wasn’t until 20:30 that the driver let us off. We had been scheduled to be in Savannakhet at 18:30 originally which would have been just before dark. And worse, we were not yet in Savannakhet. We were 25 km (15 miles) north of it, and we had to take a tuk tuk (small motor-cycle driven truck with bench seats) into town. Fortunately, the ride was paid for by the bus company, but it was such a disappointment to find that we still were not there. We had to wait a while for there to be enough people for the tuk tuk to depart.
My fellow passenger from Don Khon, a young woman from Holland, was just as disappointed as I was that the trip was not over yet. We discussed where we planned to stay, since the tuk tuk would only take us to the bus station. I told her where I thought would be best, but she wanted a cheaper place. I agreed to go with her to it by paying the tuk tuk driver extra money to take us there. When we arrived at 22:00, the lady at the guest house told us it was full! We walked back to the place where I had planned to stay, and fortunately they had two rooms. I was so disappointed in the lady from Holland, though. She had been so concerned about cost, and she automatically accepted the price quoted at the new place when everyone should know that the quoted price is never the final price and that bargaining should be done. Anyway, her accepted that as an agreeable price meant that I couldn’t bargain; I would have to pay it, too. It was too much money for such simple rooms, and we could have saved about 25% by bargaining.
I had not eaten all day, but it was already after 22:00 and I was tired. I had traveled for 12 hours—the boat for 1 1/2 hours, the van for 3 hours, the bus for 7 hours, and the tuk tuk for 1/2 hour. I just brushed my teeth and went to bed.
Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2010—Savannakhet
The first thing I did today was eat. I left the guest house and walked to the first placed where I saw two woman making Lao-style sandwiches—pâté, ham, cucumber, green onion, chile sauce, soy sauce, etc., in a French baguette. Here, the price was only 60 cents, and the sandwich was so fresh and delicious!
A man had told me a few days ago that Thailand is giving free 60-day tourist visas from the consulates in Laos to try to promote people visiting here to also visit Thailand on their trips. I am seeing far more tourists here in Laos than I did in Thailand, so my guess is that many people have avoided Thailand because of the problems there with the Red Shirt Movement in the spring and early summer. Therefore, it is a wise move on the part of Thailand since people entering via overland routes normally only get to stay in Thailand for 15 days.
There is a consulate here in Savannakhet, so I thought I would go there and maybe apply for such a visa, since I would have a better travel plan by transferring about 5-6 of my travel days I’m forced to be in Laos to Thailand. I went to the consulate at 9:00 this morning, and there were probably 50 people there to apply for visas, and most of them were Asians—Laotians and Vietnamese. I got my forms and was told I was right about the 60-day tourist visa being free. But as I completed the form, I could see that the line was not moving. I decided that applying for the visa was going to be more trouble than it would be worth. I’m just going to stay in Laos until I have only 15 days left before my departure from Thailand and cross over the border in the normal, easy way.
Among that crowd of people applying for visas were several “lady boys.” Here in Southeast Asia, each country has quite a few of these. They are young men who openly live as transvestites. They dress as women at all times and live their lives as if they are women. It must be a hard life, but they seem to be accepted by everyone. No one cast a second glance at the 3-4 lady boys who were in the group at the consulate this morning. I wonder if the lady boys at the consulate were getting visas because it is easier (more acceptable) for them to be themselves in Thailand than in Laos? They are very popular on entertainment programs including here in Laos. Yesterday on the bus, there was a long DVD of a comedy in which the majority of the performers were lady boys. Thai cinema includes several major films about characters who are lady boys, and DVDs of them have been released internationally. Therefore, maybe the lady boys at the consulate were just getting visas because being a lady boy in Thailand is a goal for them, like an actor feeling he has to go to New York if he wants to perform on the stage or to Los Angeles if he feels he must be in the movies.
After departing the consulate, I started looking for another place to stay. Where I was last night was very clean, but the room was also very basic with only a fan and hot water. Even the toilet was flushed by pouring a pan of water into it. It was attached to the floor with a drain, but had no tank or flushing mechanism built into it. Also, I didn’t want to have to continue to pay the overpriced rate I had to accept because of arriving with the girl from Holland. I went to the two other places I had selected from reading my guidebook about places here. One was nice, but the only room they had was a bit dark since the window faced the wall of another building. The other was as basic as the place where I was already staying. After that, I just wandered the streets keeping my eyes open for places that looked like they might be nice. I checked out two places that were more than I wanted to pay here and/or had problems. One was a large hotel owned by a Chinese company. It had large rooms with cable TV and a/c, and breakfast was included, but they wanted $40 US. It wasn’t that nice. Another guest house in a very nice looking colonial building also included breakfast, but it had lumpy beds and no TV while still wanting $18 US per day. Finally, I found a modern place. As my guidebook says, it has no atmosphere. But the room I saw is very clean and very light and includes a/c, cable TV, and hot water for only $8.50 per day. Again as the guide book says, they are good value rooms. I returned at 10:50, checked out of my old place, and left to check in at the new place—the Savanbanhao Hotel.
My laundry has been piling up. There is limited drying space here, so I washed only half of it—a pair of shorts, a shirt, and a pair of socks. If those dry overnight, I will wash another two shirts tomorrow afternoon. After that, I watched the last 45 minutes or so of the film Burn before Reading on HBO. It seemed poorly acted to me; I’m not sure why it got so many award nominations. From there, I moved to reading in my current book, one about a woman in an arranged marriage to an Bangladeshi man 20 years older than she who moves her to England with him. So far, it’s a very good book—one that was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. It’s the usual hot afternoon in Laos, so those activities have kept me inside and cool. I’ll go back out to explore more when the heat of the day starts passing around 17:00.
Now that I am leaving Don Khon, I wish I were going to be here another day or two. The reason is a friend I have made. He’s Ham, the man who owns a cyber café and sold me and my neighbor our boat tickets to leave the island. I’ve talked with him for a moment or two every day. But last night, we talked longer. Somehow, he got the idea I was strong. Maybe it’s because my legs are so fit from walking. Anyway, he started talking about that and our conversation quickly went to a nice back-and-forth repartee. He’s charming and intelligent. Then this morning we started the give-and-take teasing and talking more. He was asking me to promise to come back to Laos again next year.
We got an extra tour on the boat, because it took a couple from Don Khon to the neighboring island of Don Dhet. Then we returned to Don Khon to pick up more people. The reason Ham put us on the boat early was that we could get on it then at a more convenient site that was easier for Veronique, my neighbor, to handle. We got to see the people bathing in the river, floating in the river, eating at riverside restaurants, etc. Except for the seats being so hard and it adding to the length of a day that was already going to be a long travel day, it was wonderful.
When we got to the mainland, it was time to separate from Veronique. We had to quickly say good-bye to each other due to the fact that we were leaving by vans operated by different companies. She was being rushed off to her place, and I was having trouble finding my pre-paid ticket. We yelled good-bye to each other and never even exchanged ways of communicating with each other in the future.
Fortunately, I found my ticket. I had put it in a different pocket of my bag last night. There had really been no rush, however. We continued to wait about 20 minutes for more people before we loaded the van and left.
I sat beside Nikolai, a 17-year-old German. He was so impressive. He just finished school in Germany and is waiting to enter university hoping to be accepted to either medical school or dental school. Although he is young, he speaks English so well and is traveling on his own. He was aware of how long he had to stay in Laos before returning to Thailand due to the 15-day rule that Thailand has for lengths of stays when entering via an overland route. He had a good plan for where he would visit. He was very conscientious of the budget that he needed to follow and was staying within it. He did not have a cell phone or a computer with him and did not seem to miss being connected to his friends through them. It would not be easy to find an American that age who could do what he is doing in the way he is doing it. Our conversation helped make that part of the trip pass much faster than it would have seemed otherwise.
There were only two of us on the van going to Savannakhet. With more passengers, they would have had the van continue. Instead, they stopped at a bus station and put us on a local bus go make the rest of the trip. That made the rest of our travel interesting but so very long!
We left the station and went only a short distance where we went into a local neighborhood. The bus stopped at a house where they were tying the tops of many large baskets. They were filled with iced-down fish. They loaded all those baskets filling the entire open storage space below. It took a long time for them to do it. Then, the bus traveled at very slow speeds honking to get the attention of anyone who might want to go the direction we were going. About an hour later, we pulled into another bus station. There, a large pickup with side railings pulled up beside us. It was filled with big bags of fruit. The bus employees began unloading the truck by placing the fruit on the roof of the bus. Then they had to attach a rope netting to make sure the bags of fruit stayed in place. With the weight of the fish and the fruit, I worried that we might have tire trouble along the way.
Just before dark the bus was still crawling along trying to find more passengers, and we were still 145 km (87 miles) from Savannakhet. We were waved down by a group of people with motorcycles. I don’t know if they had tired, or if they had encountered problems with one or more of the cycles. But suddenly, someone was on the roof rearranging the fruit. Then he threw down a rope which was tied to the front wheel of one of the cycles. Then about six men working together lifted and pulled the motorcycle onto the roof. Then the process was repeated three more times for the rest of the bikes. The people boarded the bus, and we took off again with even more weight and being even more behind in schedule.
After dark, the bus finally speeded up. But it wasn’t until 20:30 that the driver let us off. We had been scheduled to be in Savannakhet at 18:30 originally which would have been just before dark. And worse, we were not yet in Savannakhet. We were 25 km (15 miles) north of it, and we had to take a tuk tuk (small motor-cycle driven truck with bench seats) into town. Fortunately, the ride was paid for by the bus company, but it was such a disappointment to find that we still were not there. We had to wait a while for there to be enough people for the tuk tuk to depart.
My fellow passenger from Don Khon, a young woman from Holland, was just as disappointed as I was that the trip was not over yet. We discussed where we planned to stay, since the tuk tuk would only take us to the bus station. I told her where I thought would be best, but she wanted a cheaper place. I agreed to go with her to it by paying the tuk tuk driver extra money to take us there. When we arrived at 22:00, the lady at the guest house told us it was full! We walked back to the place where I had planned to stay, and fortunately they had two rooms. I was so disappointed in the lady from Holland, though. She had been so concerned about cost, and she automatically accepted the price quoted at the new place when everyone should know that the quoted price is never the final price and that bargaining should be done. Anyway, her accepted that as an agreeable price meant that I couldn’t bargain; I would have to pay it, too. It was too much money for such simple rooms, and we could have saved about 25% by bargaining.
I had not eaten all day, but it was already after 22:00 and I was tired. I had traveled for 12 hours—the boat for 1 1/2 hours, the van for 3 hours, the bus for 7 hours, and the tuk tuk for 1/2 hour. I just brushed my teeth and went to bed.
Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2010—Savannakhet
The first thing I did today was eat. I left the guest house and walked to the first placed where I saw two woman making Lao-style sandwiches—pâté, ham, cucumber, green onion, chile sauce, soy sauce, etc., in a French baguette. Here, the price was only 60 cents, and the sandwich was so fresh and delicious!
A man had told me a few days ago that Thailand is giving free 60-day tourist visas from the consulates in Laos to try to promote people visiting here to also visit Thailand on their trips. I am seeing far more tourists here in Laos than I did in Thailand, so my guess is that many people have avoided Thailand because of the problems there with the Red Shirt Movement in the spring and early summer. Therefore, it is a wise move on the part of Thailand since people entering via overland routes normally only get to stay in Thailand for 15 days.
There is a consulate here in Savannakhet, so I thought I would go there and maybe apply for such a visa, since I would have a better travel plan by transferring about 5-6 of my travel days I’m forced to be in Laos to Thailand. I went to the consulate at 9:00 this morning, and there were probably 50 people there to apply for visas, and most of them were Asians—Laotians and Vietnamese. I got my forms and was told I was right about the 60-day tourist visa being free. But as I completed the form, I could see that the line was not moving. I decided that applying for the visa was going to be more trouble than it would be worth. I’m just going to stay in Laos until I have only 15 days left before my departure from Thailand and cross over the border in the normal, easy way.
Among that crowd of people applying for visas were several “lady boys.” Here in Southeast Asia, each country has quite a few of these. They are young men who openly live as transvestites. They dress as women at all times and live their lives as if they are women. It must be a hard life, but they seem to be accepted by everyone. No one cast a second glance at the 3-4 lady boys who were in the group at the consulate this morning. I wonder if the lady boys at the consulate were getting visas because it is easier (more acceptable) for them to be themselves in Thailand than in Laos? They are very popular on entertainment programs including here in Laos. Yesterday on the bus, there was a long DVD of a comedy in which the majority of the performers were lady boys. Thai cinema includes several major films about characters who are lady boys, and DVDs of them have been released internationally. Therefore, maybe the lady boys at the consulate were just getting visas because being a lady boy in Thailand is a goal for them, like an actor feeling he has to go to New York if he wants to perform on the stage or to Los Angeles if he feels he must be in the movies.
After departing the consulate, I started looking for another place to stay. Where I was last night was very clean, but the room was also very basic with only a fan and hot water. Even the toilet was flushed by pouring a pan of water into it. It was attached to the floor with a drain, but had no tank or flushing mechanism built into it. Also, I didn’t want to have to continue to pay the overpriced rate I had to accept because of arriving with the girl from Holland. I went to the two other places I had selected from reading my guidebook about places here. One was nice, but the only room they had was a bit dark since the window faced the wall of another building. The other was as basic as the place where I was already staying. After that, I just wandered the streets keeping my eyes open for places that looked like they might be nice. I checked out two places that were more than I wanted to pay here and/or had problems. One was a large hotel owned by a Chinese company. It had large rooms with cable TV and a/c, and breakfast was included, but they wanted $40 US. It wasn’t that nice. Another guest house in a very nice looking colonial building also included breakfast, but it had lumpy beds and no TV while still wanting $18 US per day. Finally, I found a modern place. As my guidebook says, it has no atmosphere. But the room I saw is very clean and very light and includes a/c, cable TV, and hot water for only $8.50 per day. Again as the guide book says, they are good value rooms. I returned at 10:50, checked out of my old place, and left to check in at the new place—the Savanbanhao Hotel.
My laundry has been piling up. There is limited drying space here, so I washed only half of it—a pair of shorts, a shirt, and a pair of socks. If those dry overnight, I will wash another two shirts tomorrow afternoon. After that, I watched the last 45 minutes or so of the film Burn before Reading on HBO. It seemed poorly acted to me; I’m not sure why it got so many award nominations. From there, I moved to reading in my current book, one about a woman in an arranged marriage to an Bangladeshi man 20 years older than she who moves her to England with him. So far, it’s a very good book—one that was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. It’s the usual hot afternoon in Laos, so those activities have kept me inside and cool. I’ll go back out to explore more when the heat of the day starts passing around 17:00.
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