Over Vietnam... On to Laos!

June 15

2:52pm Vietnam time

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!! I'm sorry I am not home to celebrate with you. Love you and hope you have a great day <3

We are on a 45 minute drive to the airport now. We're flying to Laos! It's strange to be taking an airplane since all the tours have been boats, trains, buses... Things on the ground.

Last night a group of 6 people, including Matt, were out until 3am. Things seem strange here haha. The bubble bar closed at midnight so they had to leave. Apparently when one bar closes everyone migrates to another one. At 1am all the bars are closed technically by the police. They said the police will actually come in and tell people to leave the club/bar. It sounds like they ended up migrating to 3 different bars. Also Matt got a local guy to show them where to go. So at one point they headed toward a big open road and there was a door. Cara said it was completely silent and then the door would open and it would be crazy loud and it would close again and be silent again (from the outside). They also said the police came in and had them leave the club and everyone waited around the corner to go back in again. Like hundreds of people are just waiting there haha. It sounds crazy. And then an hour and a half later the police came back and kicked everyone out. So that sounds pretty eventful!

11:14pm Laos time (same as Vietnam time)

I didn't sleep very well last night. It sucked. I kept waking up and I woke up at 5am and finally fell back asleep only to wake up again at 7am. I think I gave up around 7:30am. I was meeting Mars, Robby, Zara, and Bart downstairs for breakfast at 9am. We had nothing planned for Hanoi today. Robby, Zara and I were going to walk around and shop a bit after breakfast.

I said bye to Mars and it was actually really sad. I really liked her and we've spent a lot of time talking and being around each other the past 20 days so its really strange she was leaving. I am hoping that I will have time to see her when I am in Melbourne in August. When we got into Laos we were talking about how Mars would have loved it because when we were landing it was a lot of green and jungle and empty land. The way we were talking about her made Cara say that she had just gone home, not died and we should stop talking about her like she died. I don't think it was in that sense. I think we all just miss her already.

I took 2 of my bracelets off today because they were falling off. I decided I would rather preserve them for my scrapbook than lose them on the street somewhere.

When we were walking around, I ended up buying 3 dresses. One for $12 which I think I paid too much for because they were laughing at me but I tried to haggle lower and they wouldn't go lower, so that was strange. Plus, everything in their book said 50 or 100,000 dong. Wish I were a local. But whatever. Another one I bought for $24. It's all silk. I didn't want to pay more than $15 or $20 but they would only go from $25 to $24. She also said she could tell I was a student and not someone with a lot of money and so she was giving me a good price. I think it could have been better... The last one was $8. She wanted $9 but I had no dong left and I only had $8 usd or $20 and I wasn't going to use the $20!

We didn't eat lunch. i had such a big breakfast that I wasn't too worried about it. People in the group went back to Gecko, a restaurant we had already eaten at that was really good, and got salads and that made me sad I didn't eat lunch. I still really miss salads. All those leafy greens and piles and piles of fresh, raw veggies. Yumm.

We also had to say goodbye to Andy today. Unfortunately, his camera was stolen last night. We all feel so much pain for him. All his photos are gone and he's a scrapbooker as well as a foodie. He had so many photos and pictures of food as well. It's a bummer. The guy just took it off him. Once he realized he went back to find him and the man was gone. He was trying to sell him postcards and he was being very pushy about it I guess. That made me want to get a flash drive...

We saw a 16GB one in a side shop and thought it was 50,000 dong and bargained it down to 180,000 dong for 4 which is $9 so we thought it was great. Then I went to pay and it was actually each of them had been 450,000 dong. Sooo I left them and decided Dropbox may be a better idea...

Lois and Charley left today too. I saw them at breakfast and never saw them again. I never got to say bye to them either. It was strange.

We left for the airport and took the flight. The airport in Vietnam did not have free wifi. It was also set up more like what we would think of as an airport. You checked in and then went through immigration and then security. Immigration was terrible. I don't really know how I should feel about this... Compliment or not haha. The lady at the desk kept starring at my passport. Finally, she asked if it was me. Apparently, wearing my hair down and putting make up on makes me look completely different to the point that she literally thought I had stolen a US passport. I was handing her my other small passport sized photos and my ISIC card which all had pictures on it. I argued with her for a few more minutes and she finally let me through. I really think she thinks its not me. So yea, I look real different I guess! (Or maybe because she's Asian all white people look the same and it is harder for her to tell the difference between them).

The food in the airport was really expensive. This didn't matter for me since I didn't have any dong left. It was really funny though because at one point one of our tour guides (I think maybe Jackie?) was making a joke about how in Vietnam you can buy one and get one for free but you pay for both. Well, it's real! Courtney was told if she bought one drink it was 20,000 dong but if she bought 2 she would get a great deal... 50,000 dong! LOL!!! What! Makes no sense. So funny.

This was also when we had to say goodbye to Al and Leanne. I was sad saying goodbye to them as well. They're both so much fun and I they were both pretty unhappy about having to end their vacation and go back to work.

The airplane was pretty large. I sat between Cara and Zara. It was a good flight. We spent the time in the air filling out our visa information for Laos. The flight was really short... An hour and 15 minutes but I think we got there faster. And of course, we got food. Yey flying in Asia! We got a drink, a weird sponge cake thing and by that I mean it was pretty much the texture of a sponge, and then a little hot dog with a bunch of dough wrapped around it. The hot dog thing was actually pretty good.

When we got to Laos, we got off and went directly to immigration. We got our visa and paid for it and then got a stamp to come into the country and then it led directly to baggage claim. All our bags had been taken off the belt and set aside. It was probably the fastest I have gotten a visa except maybe in Thailand in the airport (since that one is literally just a stamp).

We got in a bus and drove maybe 10 or 15 minutes to the hotel. It is very humid here. Like ew humid. It didn't feel super hot since it was basically night time. We got our rooms and had half an hour before we were heading to dinner.

Laos is great! In Vietnam it is so busy, especially in Hanoi. There are almost 7 million people in the whole of Laos and a little less than 1 million in Vientiane (capital). There are a lot more cars than motor bikes here. It's also so quiet on the street. Like literally, no honking... At all. It's so peaceful! When we drove in, the city really reminded me of a little beach town in the US. Like the keys or something. The architecture style was really flat and simple.

When we met at 7:30pm almost everyone was late. A number of people had showered. Laura didn't come down til about 8pm (after Matt went to get her) because she doesn't have a phone and she did the time change calculations incorrectly. She thought it was 7pm. It was all good though.

Matt took us to dinner at a really cool looking restaurant. We had to go up a spiral staircase to get to the seating area. Matt kept trying to talk and tell us about tomorrow and the food and other things but there was live singing and the singing kept getting louder every time he would try to talk. It was pretty funny, especially to Laura and I. I couldn't hear a thing Matt was saying though so that part sucked.

I ordered laab with chicken and vegetables. Laab is the traditional Laotian dish. I asked for it not spicy because Matt said that we've entered the realm of spicy foods again. Well, he was correct haha. They actually forgot about my dish I think because everyone had food but me. I was sipping away on my beer lao which by the way is really good. It tastes like a beer from home that I have had but I honestly can't figure out which one. Also, if you order a beer in Laos, unless you specify you want a small bottle, they will bring you the large bottle. I luckily specified the small bottle :)

I also got a water which they never brought and that turned into a mess because Laura had a water that wasn't on her bill so she wanted to pay 8,000 for the water but they didn't understand and got confused. She had already paid but they were trying to get her to pay for my receipt. It was crazy. She ended up just giving me 20,000 kip and called it good and I paid for the water that was on my bill (it was 8,000 kip but she didn't seem to want the change back). They also ended up charging us for the sticky rice even though Matt was under the impression it was included. My entire meal ended up at somewhere around $5.50, including the water that wasn't mine.

I finally got my food after they asked 2 times what I had had. It wasn't not spicy. It was 'I'm actually going to blow your head off I'm so spicy'. I kept having to blow my nose and my face was bright red (according to Laura) and my eyes were tearing up! Sooooo hot! It was so spicy I really couldn't taste anything else. I also had sticky rice and normally rice helps with cooling the mouth down but it didn't help one bit! My mouth burned for probably 15 minutes still after I had finished eating. Matt said he had the same thing but his wasn't spicy at all! Either I got the flaming hot dish or Matt has taste buds of steel. It was like being in India again... But maybe worse since they didn't season it according to how I asked. Ill probably get fricking Delhi belly again :o

They actually gave us receipts to pay... Itemized and in English and Laotian. So that was cool!

After this, we walked back toward the hotel but we stopped off at a bar first for a drink. It overlooks the river and Thailand is on the other side. A bunch of us took photos and left to head back to the hotel. There was also a night market I think along the river. There were a bunch of red tents that were set up and lit up along the river.

While we were walking to the restaurant, Robby was approached by a prostitute... I swear she was a lady boy. She was walking toward him and telling him he's sexy and stuff. It was humorous an strange and awkward all at the same time.

On the way to the bar after dinner there were so many prostitutes on the streets! It was crazy. Matt said its illegal everywhere but obviously the police don't mind? He also said that they were all lady boys. They seem rather aggressive. It was also very clear they were prostitutes. Like it was a scene straight from a movie with their clothing and the way they walked. And, every corner had them. By walls, poles, etc. and there was even a corner where there was a blanket spread out and a bunch of them were sitting or standing around. It was so weird. (In Cambodia it is normal for the female to provide for the family so many of the girls go in to prostitution to make enough money to support the family. Matt clarified this today so it may contradict with what I wrote earlier but I'm not sure). I don't know why the prostitutes are all lady boys and if it is only because Thailand is right across the river or if its normal for Laos. Maybe it's more acceptable to be gay if you're a lady boy? Or maybe you make more money prostituting as a lady boy to tourists? I have no idea.

We also saw a dead cat that looked like it had been petrified straight from Harry potter. It was pretty gross actually.

Tomorrow is another day! Ready to explore Vientiane's 2 main sights!

P.S. I just found out today that Robyn speaks low German with her parents at home. Low German is a dialect but doesn't have a written language. So cool! I still wish I had been raised speaking a different language. No offense mom and dad. :)