Our Days in Vientiane

Once we were picked up at the train station and  at a local coffee shop, we headed to the kids' house. It is very nice and in a sort of "compound" which appears very safe. Remember now, there was this freaky little cold front that blew in. So this house is set with great air conditioning but no heat. The cold weather has been the primary topic of discussion everywhere in town. Who ever needs heat in central and southern Laos? But we were resilient and we layered our clothing. 

When traveling with the small amount of luggage, I bragged about in an earlier posting, one must be creative. So, our next unexpected clothing issue came when our son-in-law informed us that we could be included in an official U.S. Embassy function on Monday when Secretary of State, John Kerry, would be visiting with embassy families willie in town on official business. So, we wore the best we had, borrowed shoes, scarves and shirts and took off. 

Of course, we were fine. The bomb sniffing dog and security guys did not care one bit what we looked like and Mr. Kerry did not even get close enough to see us.

Jenñy and family.

We have seen many temples and visited two .

We went to the Laos War Museum. I have learned that this is a very strong little country to have survived so much fighting and from so many other nations. 

We ate hamburgers at a restaurant owned by this American. They cook outside in the kitchen right on the street and you eat inside, where normally you would need the air conditioning. His restaurant is one of the highest rated places to eat in Vientiane. 

We ate delicious Laos dinners prepared by Netta, who works for Jenny's family.

We celebrated Jenny's birthday.

And we visited a wonderful little business called Lao Textiles. This tiny gallery and workshop had some beautiful weavings for sale. The owner gave us a tour, an explanation of Lao weaving, plus a history and current events lesson. This visit was interesting for so many different reasons. 

Vientiane seems to be a friendly city. The streets are in terrible shape and often somewhat narrow, but they are shared with cars, trucks  and a million scooters and seem to be somewhat safe! There also seems to be a large amount of foreigners living here. The two older grandsons have teachers from Australia and Great Britan. Many businesses are owned by non Laos citizens. There is still a lot of poverty, malnutrition and very sadly, left over bombs dropped by other countries, including the U.S. 

We have certainly enjoyed these few days and have learned much. We have not, however, learned any language, written or spoken. The written language is beautiful to look at, but so different, my brain can't compute anything. 

So, that's it for now. We will be off to Vien Vang and then Luan Prabong (not sure if I spelled either of those correctly). I will check on that by the time I post again.