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. 

Trip Higlight

One of the activities Philip researched and made plans for quite a while before we actually began our trip was to ride the night train, complete with a First Class sleeper car, for our departing trip from Thailand. The tickets were purchased online and picked up for us by a ticket service.

Everything worked out great. We picked up the tickets with no trouble. Our hostel was just across the street from the train station, we visited the train station ahead of time to scope out facilities, food availability and departure procedures. We even found out that a First Class ticket earned you the right to wait for departure in the First Class lounge - air conditioning, TV, lesser used toilet area.. great, we were set. 

We took one last shower at the hostel late Saturday afternoon. We took our bags and made our way over, one more time , to the 511 cafe and ate with other passengers waiting for their departing trains. It was like a mini U,N,  People from many countries waiting to travel to varied destinations. It was great. 

We got to the station in plenty of time and found out they were boarding the train early enough that we decided to skip the lounge, board the train and settle in to our cute little private cabin in First Class. 

... What is that old saying, "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray, awry, or something like that?"... Well, that is true. 

A train official took our tickets, looked at them and said something like " whoops' sorry, no First Class tonight" (my loose interpretation here). After some protesting, gesturing, and repeated times of pointing out the words "FIRST CLASS" on our tickets, the poor man finally made it clear that tonight there was no First Class car attached to our train, but he could not explain why, and he would get the monetary difference in a First class ticket and a second class ticket refunded, but if we wanted to get to Nom Kai and then over the Laos border, we better accept our fate and get on the train. We would still be in a sleeper car, on a sleeper train, but there was not going to be a private cabin that night. 💔

 So... with sad faces, we boarded. The sleeper car brought back some deep seated memory of a long ago watched Bob Hope movie of people on sleeper cars falling out of their berths, getting into berths that already had other people in them, etc. Actually, it didn't look bad. We and a few other no longer First Class people found seats and waited for the train employee to come along and change our seats into berths and make our beds. We made our nests for the night. My claustraphobic tendencies quaked at sleeping in the top bunk where there was no window, so Philip graciously agreed to sleep there. Off we want. Our family awaited at the border, so hat made this easier. 

Sleep was fitful, but we did sleep. Somewhere in the night, Nature called to me and I had to visit the facilities. OMG, as they say! This was a frightful experience, to say the least. I totally understand that peeing while standing and rocking back and forth might be difficult for men. It is difficult even for women who have to manage to make it on a seat while rocking back and forth. 

 But this bathroom, the only one available for 10 hours, was a Nightmare! I will not go into detail about the condition of this floor, but I will just say that I drank nothing for the rest of the night so that I did not have to go visit this place again for the rest do the trip. I did have one alternative, which I did not choose to utilize, and that was the "squat toilet" across from the savory one I did visit. I can't even imagine what shape the toilet with a small hole in the floor must look and smell like. Surely, aiming at a small hole would be even more difficult than a larger bowl.

 Enough of this. Early on, the train made several stops to unload and load other passengers. The last five or six hours were then uneventful. I did try to see some of the landscape by pressing my face close to the window, but the full moon was hidden behind clouds. Somewhere around 6:00 am, people began to stir. We all took turns brushing our teeth at the two little sinks and by arrival time, we were all packed up, the berths turned back into seats and we were ready to depeart our train. 

We made our away to the ticket window and bought passage on the "Freedom Train" which would cross the border (the Mekong) into Laos and deliver us to Jenny and family.

Again, a litte U.N. of people; many were backpackers. Finally, we stepped off this train into Cold weather. I know, you are thinking, "What? Cold weather? No. This is Laos, it can't be cold. It isn't cold in Laos. Jenny gave us all the warnings about hot weather, humid weather. Bring warm clothes. "  Uh, yes cold weather, a cold front had come through that morning. We did have jackets because we had departed Texas in cold weather. We pulled them out while filling out Visa forms on the outdoor platform. 

The kids were waiting for us in the unprecedented Cold Weather and once we were though the final gate, the hugging began. 

Saturday January 23rd

Tonight, we leave on the train - more about that later.

We had to come up with a couple of day activities that allowed us to also, pack, check out, and get ready for train trip on our sleeper car.

So first, we decided to visit the river and take a recommended boat ride. Took a taxi, successfully, to the river area and found the water taxis. Now, this is a mode of transportation used daily by people going to work, shopping, to school, by the monks as well as tourists who want to see a different view of Bangkok. 

We stopped at many piers to unload and load.

The taxis came in all shapes and sizes and some were nicely decorated. 

There were times that our boat was so full, we worried about capsizing. 

The water was pretty polluted, so having to swim to shore would have been a terrifying thought.

All sorts of structures were along the shores including hotels, restaurants, apartments, hospitals, very nice homes, and poor homes. 

Some, that were obviously being lived in, looked as if one strong surge would take them into the river, but people were sitting on those porches, hanging laundry or watering their potted plants anyway.

We met some interesting folks on the boats - tourists from several different countries and locals who had great English skills and wanted to chat. We did learn that the very well loved and quite elderly king is pretty much living in one of those hospitals along shore. He is in his nineties now and not expected to live much longer. 

We made our way back, on foot, without getting lost. We decided to visit one more establishment before prepping ourself for our evening train trip.

We went in for a leg massage. 

 PD got a little more than that, however.

For some reason, the therapist thought he seemed stressed (maybe it was the constant talking that He was doing with the cute South African girl in the next chair?) So the masseuse worked on his knees (seemed as if he was trying to bend them backwards), then he directed him to one of the nearby beds, flipped him over and walked on his back. We were lucky he didn't break something and require me to break out the traveler's insurance. 

That done, we rested up, took showers back at the hostel, made our way to our now favorite outdoor cafe across from the train station and ate our last meal before boarding the train. We ate with a nice couple from Holland, about our age, interesting back stories. Everyone in the cafe was awaiting different train departures. By 7:30 the cafe was vacant. 

Train trip .... Next post.

Bangkok

  So,  we found this little cafe across the stree and around the corner. You actually have to take an escalator to go down under the street and come up on the other side. It is called the 511 cafe. We ate there a lot and will go there tonight just before boarding our sleeper train to Laos.

Here we are last night.

Lots of backpackers come here to hand out. The owner is very outgoing and gets involved with all of the customers. 

If you are a diet coke fan, here is what the cans look like in Thailand. Kind of exotic.

One of the important sites you are supposed to visit is the National Museum complex which also includes the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. So... Off we go, assuming we can just hail a taxi, hand the driver the map and say "take us to the National Museum". After several attempts to communicate this to a couple of drivers and to make sure a driver had an actual meter in his car, we gave up and with heads hung low, returned to our hostel and requested assistance from the manager. He hailed a taxi, talked at length to the driver and assured us we would be delivered to the correct place.

And we were... Delivered to the entrance with perhaps another million people.

Along with buying my tickets, I was directed to the "costume shop" to rent a sarong to wrap around my lower half because my leggings (although long and well covered by a long shirt) were deemed not appropriate. With that done, we plunged into the mass of people. The most dangerous part of this being the many short people with umbrellas that rested just about eye level for us. It would have certainly been better to visit this honored site with a guide, but I have to say the mass of people made viewing all parts of this facility was down right claustraphobic. 

The amount of detail in the mosaic work was tremendous. The number of Buddhas, dragons, lions, snakes, etc was also impressive.

 I am sad to say, we succumbed to overload and did not make it in to the central part of the temple to see the actual reclining Buddha. 

I turned in my sarong and we escaped, made our way across the street to a cafe, bought some cooling drinks and sat in air conditioning along with many other sweaty visitors.

Next, we experienced one of the many things tourists are warned about.... We hailed a taxi, gave the driver directions to take us the the Hua Lampong train station (across the street from our hostel, but a main landmark in the city). He affirmed and we hopped in. A few minutes into the ride, he started speaking  in very broken English about having to stop, take us somewhere else, perhaps he said something about gas. We just kept giving him the name of our destination. He finally got mad, turned off the meter, pulled to the curb and motioned for us to get out. Luckily we were in a safe but busy area. We hailed another cab and this time, got a nice driver, with some English and he took us right where we requested. 

I have to say, this city is a little overwhelming. In the hotels, cafes, businesses, the Thai people are helpful and sometimes friendly. Certainly, most of these people speak pretty good English, but many wait staff and even direct service staff do not and there is no commonality in Enlish and Thai so a lot of gesturing and pointing to pictures is what one resorts to. 

APOLOGY

Let me apologize to anyone who might be following this blog at the moment.i am using only the iPad on this trip. And as you can see I am having photo sizing trouble. I even downloaded a photo resizing program and it apparently isn't helping.  At least I can move pictures from camera to the iPad. I will keep working on it.

Progress

.ggyWe survived our flights. We figured we we awake for basically 26 hours. Philip got some sleep on the planes. Me - maybe an hour between two flights. Korean Air was great. I read two books and watched five movies, ate decent vegetarian entrees and drank free wine. 

The airports are pretty cool - great architecture with of course, SEA decor.

Seoul

Bangkok

This is us as we awaited start of first flight.

We arrived in Bagkok in the wee hours of the morning. The Hotel driver was exactly where we were told he would be. The drive to the hotel was less than 15 min. This is a little boutique hotel. Very nice, clean, and great air conditioning. 

They served us an excellent breakfast, helped us purchase phone SIM  card from the 7-11 next door, helped us get to supermarket and then took us back to airport to exchange money and catch train for the city center. 

By following this map, we made it onto the train and then onto the subway. Saw our first monk in his saffron colored robe.

We made it to the downtown area of Hua Lampong. Our hostel is actually very nice and close to all means of transportation and lots of small street cafes. 

Sorry- poor picture and it isn't attractive from the street. But it is nice inside and the employees have good English. Last night they had Tango lessons in their small community room, but, alas, we onLy caught the last few minutes. 

Halfway Through our Trip

Ugh. We have made it the first 16 hours of our trip. We are sitting in the Inchoun airport in Seoul.  Korean Air is a very nice airline, so far. Plenty of leg room but the lady in the seat next to me slept much of the way hanging over her seat into my space. I did watch two movies and read a lot, 

Once we landed, we found the free transit passenger showers

 

We ate Pho and spring rolls and drank ion water.

Now we are at the gate. Philip is checking emails and letting our girls know we survived.

BTW, did I mentioned that our goal was once again to check no bags? So here is what we came with.

And here is our plane awaiting our boarding and travel to Bangkok. 

Now, let's see, I arose this morning at 5:00am. My watch says 3:01.... So that is 22 hours by my calculation. I got almost no sleep on the first flight; maybe I can get more on this next one.

Well, that's all for now. I'll write again from Bangkok.