Tuesday July 15th – Second Day On the Mekong River, Laos

I woke up early after a fitful sleep.  Our nest for the night was two twin beds shoved together under the protection of a giant mosquito net.  The kids insisted on using the mosquito net, even though there didn’t seem to be any mozzies in the room.  Stella seems to be worried that one of the ever present chee-chucks is going to drop off the ceiling and land in her hair so where available, the deployment of the mosquito net has become mandatory.  I was allotted about four inches on the edge of the bed for my personal space, which meant the damn netting kept getting wrapped up in my face the whole night, which produced odd dreams and hallucinations.  In one I was a fish with my gills caught in a net, drowning underwater.  In another, I was being smothered by a blanket of dirt.  In yet another, there was some unknown person simply trying to wrap something around my head.  Each time I would wake up, pull the netting off my face, readjust my position, and then try to get back to sleep.  Finally, around 4 in the morning I finally got smart and just took the stupid net off my sliver of the bed, then was able to sleep in comfort.

We had our final uninspiring meal at Pakbeng then got boarded on our boat, which was a different one from yesterday, but quite similar in design, though it become apparent that today’s captain was less skilled.  In this transient town there were at least a dozen other slow boats docked, and as Captain Smash-A-Lot was reversing our vessel, he smashed into at least half of them.  Before each collision the occupants of the smashee would all scream the same Lau words at our captain, which I can only assume translated to, “Stop, you asshole!”

After bumper-boating our way out we were finally headed upstream for this final day of our journey.  The scenery was much the same today, though as we got towards the end of the trip we started noticing that the left side of the river, which was now Thailand, was beginning to look much more developed, which is not too surprising as it is a much richer country than Laos.

We finally reached our destination, a border town called Huey Xai and as we approached the bank Captain Smash-A-Lot made sure to crash into two of the other slow boats, attracting the same verbal abuse he received from the other captains this morning.  We got a room at a lovely, new, small hotel and were treated with a stunning view over the Mekong, one which we got to enjoy for much too short a time as the following morning we were scheduled to make the trip across the border to Thailand.

There wasn’t a great selection of restaurants so we picked up a grilled chicken from one of the roadside stalls and noodle cups and fruit from a shop and had a lovely backpacker dinner in our room, enjoying the view and talking about the river trip and the upcoming days.  We all felt sad to be leaving Laos, as it has been our favourite country so far, but on trips such as this, with so much more to see, you are always looking forward instead of back.

Monday July 14th – Traveling the Mekong River, Laos

One of the things we had to give up to take this trip was using our sailboat for the season.  We took the opportunity of some boat time by booking a two day trip on the Mekong River which runs upstream from Luang Prabang to Huay Xai, which is on the border with Thailand.  The Mekong River is one of the largest river systems in Southeast Asia and still serves as a primary method of transport, especially for some of the villages which are not served by roads.

The “slow boats” as they are called are unique – probably at least 150 feet long on average with a steel hull and passenger seating for 80 to 100 people.  At the stern of the boat is the living quarters for the family which lives aboard and operates the boat.  Next is the engine room with a large, inboard diesel - likely around 150 HP.  Ahead of this is a small toilet facility, then a kitchen where simple snacks and cold drinks are available for purchase.  Beyond this is the passenger seating, which seemed to be scavenged min-van seats all lined up on either side of the boat, but not bolted down, so could be moved around or completely turned.  Some of the boats we saw had a different configuration, such as permanent tables and seats – more like restaurant seating – but ours did not have this.  At the bow of the boat was an area to store baggage, then a small wheelhouse where the helmsman piloted the vessel.  Both sides of the boat were open, which provided for a constant, cooling breeze, but also installed were curtains and plastic covers which could be rolled down in case of heavy rain.

Overall, it was a lovely boat and perfect for an epic jungle journey!  We were picked up by tuk-tuk at our guesthouse at 7:30 and whisked off to the main jetty, which was only a few miles out of town.  We climbed aboard our boat, claimed seats, settled in for the ride, and were soon off carving through the turbulent waters, after the skilled captain expertly navigated the boat out of the jetty in a strong current.  It cannot be easy piloting such a long vessel as the sole control is the single rudder at the back of the boat.

The Mekong River is the colour of chocolate milk and looks extremely dirty, but is likely not.  I suspect the colour is leeched in from the soil, as the small sections of ground we can see (there is vegetation growing everywhere so not much dirt is visible) is a dull red colour.  There are huge, glistening, black shanks of rock that strike out from the river bottom, reaching up twenty feet or more, and appear sometimes in the middle of the river or sometimes closer to the banks.  There are large and small islands, some with beaches, some just rock and others covered in vegetation.  The current is strong and creates giant whirlpools that collect and swirl all the debris floating down the river, like palm leaves, bamboo poles, ripped fishing nets, plastic food containers, empty Beerlao bottles, packaging, dead fish, tree trunks, and all varieties of human litter.  How the captain was able to consistently navigate this enormous boat around all the whirlpools, shallow spots and rocks is a mystery to me, but he did it well.

The banks on both sides of the river were consistently green.  About a thousand different shades of green.  We would occasionally pass small villages – not as many as I was expecting – and each one featured a sizeable gang of small naked children leaping off the bank into the water and waving happily at the passing boat.  We saw animals, limited to cows, some kind of water buffalo, and goats, but unfortunately nothing as exotic as snakes or monkeys.  There were many, many sand beaches and small dunes on the shoreline and the island outcroppings.  Because of the fast current and many landing spots I was expecting to see adventure seekers paddling on kayak or canoes, but I noticed none of these, though there was a fair bit of motor boat traffic.  The other transport option was taking a speedboat, which gets you there in a fraction of the time, but is much more expensive and apparently these daredevils have a terrible safety record.  Many of these boats zipped past us, some headed upstream, some downstream, all at a blisteringly fast pace, and the driver and passengers all wore lifejackets and, in some cases, motorcycle helmets and face shields.

Passing the time was not difficult – we simply enjoyed the scenery, read, played card games, wandered around the boat, ate snacks, and visited with fellow passengers.  We reached the midway point at around 5:30 pm – a village named Pakbeng, which was a transient town full of nothing beyond guesthouses, restaurants, bars and small shops selling food.  We found a place to stay, went out for a lackluster meal, and then retired after a long, soothing, yet somehow exhausting day on the river.

Saturday, Sunday July 13th –Biking Around Luang Prabang, Laos

These past two days were glorious and nearly indistinguishable as we spent them simply cruising around the lovely town of Luang Prabang on bicycles, with Ana and I on pedal duty and the kiddies riding on the built-in seat on top of the rear fender.  Ana and I do not even own bicycles at home, and I haven’t actually ridden a bike in years, but after having so much fun these past two days we will be buying bikes when we get home.

Of course, the biking is a bit different here as we didn’t have any helmets and the busy roads are basically a giant free-for-all for the cars, trucks, mini-busses, tuk-tuks, cows, roosters, dogs, bicycles and people that are all using it as the same time.  But you know, it’s funny how the traffic just seems to move along, as everybody is just cautious enough to avoid a collision but not so overly cautious as to slow down the flow.  Again, seeing how the traffic works here makes me a little upset at Canada, where we love putting up traffic signals at every single street corner where there is even a remote chance of a potential accident, or to service the three pedestrians a day that need to walk across the road.  It just shows how bad we are at understanding risk and comparing options; for example, every new traffic signals causes millions of tonnes of CO2 to be released in the atmosphere over its lifetime because of all the idling vehicles sitting there, waiting for that little light to change to green, even though there is very little or no traffic.  This is a real cost to the world, but this is never factored into the decisions to put up a new traffic signal.  There have actually been experiments done in western countries where they have completely removed all the traffic signals and stop signs from entire cities to see how it affects traffic.  Guess what happens – less accidents and faster movement of traffic.  But it takes brave leaders to make such decisions, and these are in very short supply.

Yikes, what happened to my happy blog?  Hey, that’s the reason we travel – to see how things are done elsewhere and how we could improve things at home.

It seems that every corner you round in Luang Prabang brings another magnificent Buddhist temple into view, so you find yourself getting off the bike often, grabbing your camera and wandering around temples snapping photos.  There are monks which live at every temple and take care of it, pray and basically hang around.  We’ve heard that they normally go out and beg for meals, but it seems here that people drop food off at the temples for them.  As you wander around the temples, the monks really pay no attention to you whatsoever and let you roam around at will, which is really the same treatment you get from the locals – they rarely harass you to buy stuff and are very passive and friendly.

We would bike around for a while, and when we got hungry or thirsty, stop at any of the dozens or maybe hundreds of restaurants in town for a banana, papaya or mango shake, or a cold Beerlao, or a snack.  One afternoon we stopped at a massage place and each got a foot scrub and Ana got a facial treatment and the total bill was about fifteen bucks, which included a big tip.  We went through the national museum which is the palace where the king used to live and saw all his gold covered thrones, rooms and knick-knacks.  We stopped at bookstores and swapped our used books for different used books.  We explored dozens of streets and paths.  We talked to people.  We ate lots of ice cream.  Luang Prabang is the kind of city you can really immerse yourself in and a day could easily turn into a week.  This is the best city we have been to so far on this trip.

The ample leisure time in this lovely city provided the opportunity for me to engage in many juvenile antics, even more than usual.  I spent a lot of time with the kids studying chee-chucks (the little green geckos that are all over the walls and ceilings).  About a month before our trip, we were at a McDonalds and I asked Magnus if he knew what a spitball was.  Well, I was shocked and ashamed at my poor mentoring when I discovered he had never heard of them.  So, as a responsible father, I pulled the straw out of his root beer, bit off a sizeable chunk of my napkin, and demonstrated the proper spitball technique by splattering a juicy wad on the face of the Ronald McDonald mannequin.

Well, turns out we found an excellent situation to practice our spitballing skills.  As we sat in a restaurant one evening, I spotted a chee-chuck on a pillar near our table.  I asked Stella to “hold my beer and watch this” and grabbed a straw, chewed up a napkin, and launched a spitball across the restaurant, hoping to strike the creature and knock it off the wall.  I missed by a couple inches, but was delighted to see the chee-chuck first back away from the splatter, then slowly approach it, then quickly attack the wad and eat it!  The kids loved it and I could barely contain my joy at this exciting discovery.  Magnus and I launched a full volley of spitballs at the hungry lizard and only stopped when Ana threatened to leave the restaurant.

Friday, July 11th –The Ultimate Day Trip in Luang Prabang, Laos

When you are on a one week vacation it’s fun to do several “day trips” as part of your holiday, such as a guided tour to historical sites, a day of fishing and so on.  But on an extended trip, it’s not really feasible for the budget to be doing day trips all the time, so you need to be selective.  So far, we did the turtle watching in Malaysia and scuba diving in the Perhentians.  Well, today we did a day trip that we will remember for a long time.

We arrived at the shop where we bought the package by 8:30, but had to wait a few minutes for the last two people to show up, and when they did it was a bit of a surprise as it was a young American couple and the girl had a giant shiner in her right eye and was clearly extremely hung over.  I was sure there must be a good story there, but that would come later.  So the driver, the guide and nine customers took off in the mini-van which was in pretty good shape, except like all the rest of the vehicles we have been in, the shocks were completely gone so I received a number of free chiropractic adjustments as we slammed through the larger potholes.

After about forty minutes we arrived at our first stop – Whiskey Village.  Yes, cool name for a bar, but probably not the town you want stamped on your birth certificate, though I soon realized that wasn’t the real town name; they are just know for the rice whiskey and wine they produce.  We followed the guide and wandered through the village.  There wasn’t too much of interest until we reached the town temple, which was quite impressive with its freshly painted Buddha statues and structures.  Beyond here, was a street with many of the locals selling handicrafts, then after this the guide showed us the rice fermenting operation.  There were dozens of large urns, each of which was full of fermenting rice emitting a dizzying, boozy aroma.  He offered each of us a sample shot of both the rice wine and rice whiskey, which was pretty tasty.

By this time, Ana had struck up a conversation with the young couple and we learned their names were Alex and Angel, and they were from the state of Utah.  The guide offered Angel a shot of booze, the mention of which made her gag as she politely declined.  Alex told us she had a nasty run in with a toilet the previous night.  They had been at a local bar, then around 11 (the state regulated closing time) followed the crowd of backpackers in tuk-tuks to the famous bowling alley, located a few kilometers out of town, but famous because it is the only venue which remains open all night serving booze.  Well, she was in the mood for drinking so by the time they returned back to their guesthouse at 5am all motor control was pretty much shot and she took a nosedive into the side of the toilet, bashing up her eye in the process.  I felt quite bad for her, as I’ve been in that situation too many times to remember, and it made me appreciate the state of non-hangover I was experiencing.

We were shuffled back to the mini-van, breaking up the game of “catch the chicken” which Magnus and Stella were enjoying, as here were a dozen speedy little chicks racing around the rice urns.  We were driven a few minutes to the elephant camp, which was right on the riverbank and housed four beautiful Asian female elephants.  The served us coffee and tea under the covered lunching area, then took us over to the launch pad where you climbed a platform so you could get loaded on the elephant.  Each elephant carried a royal bench saddle, and as it only had room for three, I was allowed to ride ahead of the saddle, right on the elephant’s back!  The elephant’s head was covered with short and incredibly coarse wiry hair.  My legs hung down behind her floppy ears, and when she had them tucked away at her side, it was very hot on the legs, but she would frequently fan them out which allowed some air in.  Once we were all loaded, we took off, or perhaps it’s more appropriate to say we moseyed off, as elephants really don’t move too fast.  The elephant’s trainer walked ahead of us guiding the elephant along the path, which snaked its way into the jungle, and we trudged along, going up and down several steep hills at a slow, but steady pace.  There were two elephants with riders behind us, both of which frequently stopped to rip some grass out of the jungle for a quick snack.  I think our elephant must have been the matriarch as she was the largest and set the pace, didn’t stop to snack, and frequently let out a deep rumbling noise of admonishment to the misbehaving youngsters.  I looked back a couple times to see Angel trying to nap in the constantly swaying elephant saddle – that must be one severe hangover.

The trek lasted nearly an hour and when we arrived back to the camp, the elephants were each given a large rod of sugar cane, which they somehow snapped into pieces with their nimble trunks then gobbled up.  We got off the elephants and were allowed to grab more sugar cane rods and feed them to our elephant which was really neat, especially because we could get right next to her, look into her eyes, feel her trunk and touch her skin.  Magnus had a bag of peanuts and wanted to test the theory that peanuts are an elephant’s favourite snack.  One of the trainers took a handful and offered it to her.  She sniffed it with her trunk, and quickly turned away.  So he then took a handful, reached in behind her trunk and threw them directly into her mouth, which she promptly spit out.

Next up on the ultimate day trip was a visit to the Buddha Caves.  The mini-van took us away a short distance to another small village, where we were lead down to the Mekong river and piled into several long boats, then ferried to the cave location, which was directly across.  We visited two caves here, an upper one which required a lengthy climb to get to, then a lower one which was only about 20 metres above the river level.  Inside the caves were hundreds of small Buddha statues, places on altars and in any indentations in the cave wall which would allow.  After a brief look around, we boated back to the lunch area, noticing along the way how incredibly hot it had become, then jumped in the mini van and were taken back to the elephant camp for lunch with the pachyderms, as they were wandering around the yard and eating sugar cane we enjoyed our rice and chicken.

The final stop for the day was to the Kouang Si Waterfall, which was an hour drive from the elephant camp.  The scenery here was overpowering – imagine walking up a path in dense jungle, with the smell of green all around you, then a giant waterfall appears before you (and, predictably, hundreds of people) which empties into a succession of perfect bathing pools.  Stella, Magnus and I swam through one of the pools up to where the water was cascading over the rocks and Stella says to me, “Daddy, is this…you know, real?”  And I knew exactly what she meant, as it was so perfect it seemed like something you would find in a Las Vegas hotel.

There were at least a dozen separate pools so we swam in a few of them, but the final one was the best, as it had a large tree hanging over a deep pool with a launching platform to leap in, and was also full of these little fish that like to nibble the dead skin on your feet.  They are the same ones used in the Chinese fish spas, which we were planning to try out here, as these spas are plentiful, but we all tested it out by standing in the shallows and letting the fish nibble away.  It turns out that I’m the only one who enjoyed it, and I let them nibble away until my feet were soft, smooth and silky.

By 5:30 the pools had emptied of people so we had a few minutes to ourselves, then walked back to the van, along the way passing their bear sanctuary where they had a bunch of Asian black bears walking around in a big enclosure.

Before long we were back at our hotel in Luang Prabang and finished off this extraordinary day with another walk through the night market and a delicious dinner at a nearby restaurant.

Thursday, July 10th –Vang Vieng to Luang Prabang, Laos

I awoke to a continuation of the downpour which began the previous afternoon.  The monsoon season was clearly in full force here in Laos.  Our mini-van was scheduled to pick us up at 9 so by 8 we were in the breakfast area, which was on the second level of a riverside structure housing the restaurant kitchen and bar on the main level.  The breakfast was delicious and the scenery amazing so we enjoyed our food and what little time remained of our stay in Vang Vieng.  We considered spending another day here, but had heard that Luang Prabang was even nicer so had just booked the one night, and since it was raining anyway it wasn’t too disappointing leaving.

The mini-van driver actually showed up early, so we quickly packed up our stuff and got choice seats as we were the first stop.  This looked like a big improvement on yesterday’s transport as the vehicle was quite new, the ac worked well and the driver looked like he was on a mission.  After picking up several more people, including a very nice French family, we were on our way.  If I had done some research on this particular stretch of road, I would have given the kids a round of Gravol, as the ride went right through the mountains, up and down hundreds of switchbacks, snaking its way through the beautiful, forbidden landscape, providing a dizzying ride.  Magnus found a plastic bag and fashioned it into a highly functional vomit catcher by wrapping the two handles around his ears placing it firmly around his mouth, which provided a good laugh once we noticed what he had done.  Ten minutes before our lunch stop, Magnus cried out, “Stella’s puking!” and we looked over to see her with a handful, faceful, and lapful of warm spew.  Magnus then fell to the chain reaction effect and had his own puke, but his invention worked perfectly and caught everything.

We arrived at our lunch stop, got Stella cleaned up and changed, then had a quick lunch and were soon back on the bus.  Exactly six hours later from the start of the journey, we arrived in Luang Prabang main bus station on the outskirts of town.  The tuk-tuk driver wanted 100,000 kip for the ride into town (the conversion rate is just shy of 8,000 to 1 CDN dollar) but I managed to negotiate him down to 50,000 which I was quite proud of.  As we were all loaded up in the tuk-tuk, the driver jammed the French family in with us, thereby getting his original 100,000.  He drove into the centre of town, dropped us off in front of a narrow street and told us our hotel was down there, so we paid him, started walking and discovered that our hotel was nowhere to be found, so with the help of a kindly chap from Montreal who was quietly nursing one large Beerlau bottle after the other, we figured out where we supposed to go and hired another tuk-tuk for 25,000 who took us there.  Stella was feeling very bad that we had been ripped off, but we told her it’s no big deal as you will always have to deal with people in life who try to rip you off, and many will be successful, especially when you are traveling and in unfamiliar situations.  We told it’s best to not get too worried about it, and the end effect is usually only a few bucks, and it’s all part of the experience.

Our hotel, called the Chitchareune Mouang Luang, is fantastic and has a large, cool swimming pool, which we immediately plunged into and rinsed off the bus sweats.  After this we relaxed in the room for a while, then once it had cooled down outside, went for a walk into town.  One of the first sights we found was a Buddhist temple, and as we approached we heard this beautiful, clear, spine-tingling chanting coming from within.  We peeked in to see a dozen or so monks along with quite a few westerners participating in some sort of ceremony, or perhaps it was just meditation.  Their voices sang in unison and we stopped for a while to listen and be amazed, haunted, uplifted by their heavenly voices.

We continued walking along until we reached the central area, which borders on the banks of the mighty Mekong river, then explored poked around at a few shops and went into a trip booking shop and, before we knew it, had a booked a day trip for the following day which involved caves, boats, elephants and waterfalls.

As our hunger was getting the best of us, we finally decided on a restaurant and sat down to enjoy a delicious meal, and made friends with a lovely Swiss couple who were sitting next to us.  We then wandered through the night market and found it to be completely different than all the other markets we’ve seen – instead of thousands of knock-off items this market instead sold all types of Laos handicrafts, from snake whiskey to bracelets to silver jewelry to the ubiquitous MC Hammer pants.  Magnus bought an iPhone speaker which was actually a piece of bamboo you set your device in and it magically amplifies the volume.

By this time little Stella was wearing out fast so she jumped on my back and we walked back to the hotel.  The kids crashed, Ana did her nails, and I sat on our balcony and enjoyed a Cuban cigar I had tucked away in the depths of my backpack and a cold Beerlau, while listening to the night sounds of the city.

Wednesday, July 9th – From Vientiane to Vang Vieng, Laos

When the bus arrived to pick us up at the hotel for the four hour trip to Vang Vieng, we were surprised to find that it was not a bus; what arrived was an oversized tuk-tuk that the driver managed to cram 14 people into.  Our fellow sardines were all backpackers, and each looked at their companions nervously wondering if this was to be our mode of transport up the inevitably dusty and bumpy northern road.  Fortunately, after a single stop where he crammed two more people into the impossibly full vehicle, we arrived at the central bus station and were scientifically unpacked from the tuk-tuk grande then led to a normal sized bus where we found four seats together and got settled in for the ride.

The first half of the ride was pretty gloomy – flat terrain, garbage littered on the roadside, famished looking goats and chickens picking around, dirty, depressed roadside shops selling dusty baguettes and papayas, and no onboard entertainment of any sort.  Actually, there was one sort of entertainment – a boy Aussie and a girl Aussie sat across from us and talked constantly the entire trip.  I mean, they didn’t even stop to breathe.  I think they may have been hot for each other because she would reply to everything he told her with a dreamy, “Wow….” even if he said something like, “I put on fresh pants today” which would have been a lie as he looked real grubby.  I also couldn’t help but get annoyed by certain parts of the Aussie accent, in particular, the way they say the words “no” and “so”.  They actually say “noy” and “soy” in an especially nasally way.  It goes like this:

“Soy, ah wint ahf en found meself a noice cuppa tea, but thin oy spilled tha fuckah in me lap”

“Oy noy!  Whatja do thin?”

“Soy, oy hadta whip off me trousahs en sit there in me jocks.”

“Oy noy!  Thit’s ah disastah!”

“Fair dinkum!”

“Wow….”

It’s actually good to hear that good old Aussie accent again.  We are soon going to be meeting up with my Aussie buddy Todd, whose accent seems to get thicker the longer he’s away from Australia, so tuning up my ear will help in the translation process.

As we looked around the bus I could see we were definitely back in the heart of backpacker land.  It seems that traveling around the world gives people the license to be filthy.  As you know, Ana is a fashion backpacker, so she looks as good backpacking as she does at home, and it takes just as long for preparation in the morning (why do you think I have so much free time for writing journals?)  Most backpackers are pretty grimy.  And many of them are super skinny from all the weed they consume in lieu of food, and when they do eat it’s all that super socially conscious vegan slop, which doesn’t provide much in the way of calories.  There was one French couple, and I really felt like offering to buy them a bath and a burger as they were gaunt and pale, and I’m sure buddy’s waist length dreads which were all rolled up and bundled on his head were hosting their own ecosystem.

Ana also pointed out the new female backpacker costume, which I hadn’t really noticed.  Remember back in around 1986 when those MC Hammer clown pants were in style?  Actually, my grandma made me and my two brothers each a pair of them and they were so cool.  Then they became ridiculous.   But seems they are cool again because 90% of the girl backpackers are wearing flashy, multi-coloured MC hammer pants.  It sort of sucks that Ana pointed this out, because now I find myself saying “You can’t touch dis” about 30 times a day, once for every time I see a chick wearing them.  She also noticed that they all wear these thin, fabric bracelets, presumably one for each dude they have laid while backpacking, or at least that is Ana’s theory.  Speaking of that, I better pick up one for Ana, the mosquito netting around the two small twin beds in our small room provided the perfect visual shield from the sleeping children this morning.  Maybe I should get her some MC Hammer pants too.

The trip to Vang Vieng actually took six hours from start to finish, so by the time we arrive we were quite exhausted.  Our hotel, called the Ban Sabai, was a set of rustic, cool, small chalets, most of which looked overlooked the Nam Song river which flowed rapidly across the back of the hotel grounds.  Surrounding the town are a series of mountains, making the scenery quite stunning, and providing for a wide range of adrenaline junkie activities like rock climbing, trekking, kayaking and dune buggy racing.  We bought our tickets for the following day’s journey up to Luang Prabang, and then found a nice place for lunch, starting off with a delicious cold Beerlau.  As we sat, we noticed a couple dogs in the street, one whom we saw steal a sock from a little girl sitting at one of the vendor stalls, and the other which was spray painted.  We did see one other spray painted dog in Vientiane, but assumed it was a one off, so now it is looking more and more like people from Laos like to spray paint their dogs.

We wandered around town for a bit then went back to our cabin, and just as we arrived it started to pour.  And pour.  And pour so much that we decided the day was finished so we spent the final couple hours sitting in our room, reading, talking and relaxing, in preparation for yet another long bus ride tomorrow.

Tuesday, July 8th – The Locals in Vientiane, Laos

On the way to dinner we passed a Dairy Queen and, as we had missed our daily ritual of searching for ice cream mid afternoon, we told the kids we might come back after our meal for dessert.  We stopped at the busiest place we found – a restaurant named Via Via who specialty is wood fired, brick oven cooked pizza and tied into the most delicious pizza we may have ever eaten.  As we ate we struck up a conversation with the French owner, who had been living in Laos and running this restaurant for a year and a half, and had previously lived in Singapore.  He told us a lot about Laos – how the tourism was on the rise, how expensive commercial property was becoming, about the thriving drug trade in poppies, and he also gave us some great information on traveling in Myanmar, which is one of his favourite places.

Towards the end of our meal, the heavens opened and the rain started to fall.  Tropical rain, delivered in large buckets.  Seeming unaware of the deluge around us, Magnus Sweet-tooth said, “Can we go over to Dairy Queen now?”

“You seriously think we should walk over there in this downpour?” I replied.

“No,” he said, “I think we should run.”

That clever response won him a trip to Dairy Queen and he practically inhaled a chocolate dipped, vanilla cone!

Earlier in the day, we again visited Ray’s Grille for a burger fix, though this time got to meet the owner, whose name is actually Daniel (Ray is his son).  He spent a good while chatting with us, filling us in on what it was like living and running a business in Vientiane.  He left Seattle when he was 27, lived in Bangkok for 25 years and had been living in Laos for the past three, with his Thai wife and son.  He told us there was a large number of western expatriates living in Vientiane, mostly working for NGOs, but also many diplomats and people working for private companies.  One of his regular customers came in, who we instantly assumed to be a local “heavito” – this is the word used in Dominican Republic to identify a cool, young, hip, and usually rich, local person who the little kiddies want to be like when they grow up.  We had a chat with him and learned he ran a company (obviously successful) and liked his cars – he had a Lamborghini and a Rolls-Royce.  Clearly not everybody in Laos was poor.

For the remainder of the day, we simply wandered around, still amazed by the variety of restaurants (and cheap prices).  When it got too hot to wander, we returned to the hotel and enjoyed the swimming pool, and when even that got hot we retired to the nicely air conditioned room for some quiet reading time.  The kids and I came up with some characters for a short story, so that may be tomorrow’s project.