Dear Family and Friends,
Tuesday, September 11, we awoke questioning what the day would bring. Would we be able to leave Luang Prabang today? How far would we make it? After all, the last time Martha had tried to make the trip from Luang Prabang all the way to Vientiane, she and Capt’n Harry had to stop in Vang Vieng because the trip was too long, windy, and uncomfortable by bus to go on. 
We’d unpacked few things the night before, so repacking was easy. We paid for the night in USD and got change in both kip and dollars to get us through the day since we’d been unable to get cash from the ATM the day before. We grabbed a tuk-tuk to the bus station, arriving by 7:45 AM—whoa early!
We each bought a baguette with egg, tomato, salad, and cheese for 10,000 kip. As we 
waited for the 8:30 AM bus to depart, we wanted to take some time to contemplate the sad events of six years before in New York City and DC, but since it was 11 hours earlier and still September 10 in the States, we decided to wait for 9:00 PM at night to be more in-line with the situation at home. Map of Vientiane from the tourist office in hand, Dani went to ask at the counter where we would arrive in Vientiane and about what time so she could figure out if we should try the border crossing into Thailand today or wait until tomorrow. The ‘Express Bus’ left right at 8:30 AM, and we’d be arriving at the bus station out by the airport T2 around 5:00 PM. 
We were thrilled to have seats 3 and 4 in the front of the bus (great views for our picture taking extravaganza!), and very few other passengers got on board. The bus took off like a bat out of Hades, speeding through towns, beeping at other drivers and locals lollygagging across the street as if he was from Hanoi. We’ll make it to Vientiane in no time at this rate, we thought, enjoying the view of the villages from a more panoramic perspective. But by 9:15AM, we stopped.
A food stop already? Nope. We are told to get out of the bus and get into the other one waiting for us. Apparently the speed demon tactics had been to catch u
p with the 8:00 AM VIP Bus (because it had a bathroom on board) so that they could add us to the masses already on board. The nine passengers from our Express Bus managed to find seats on the already-packed VIP Bus. We found two seats together—in the last two seats in the very back row of the bus.
This driver was no less a crazy maniac than on the previous bus, and his a co-pilot wore in a T-shirt that said ‘Psychopathic.’ The bends had become no less strenuous than Martha remembered from before, and certainly being at the back of the bus extenuated the circumstances. What a workout for our core and upper arms. 
When we stopped for lunch around 12:30 PM in the town that had been our first stop out of Vang Vieng the other day, we were amazed to be that far along already. Again, we spent the hours staring out the window at the rolling, awe-inspiring mountains. Martha couldn’t sleep with the jostling but showed off her strong stomach by reading in her book while holding on with one hand around the curves. Dani managed a few zzzz out of boredom; she couldn’t 
see out of the window very well and her book had too fine print to read during the heavy periods of twists and turns. She did manage to get some reading in at the stops along the way, and is finding it fun to finally read stories she’s heard about but never known: Samson and Delilah, David and Goliath, etc.
The VIP bus was scheduled to arrive in Vientiane at 4:30 PM, but we got in a half hour early. We hopped into the saang thaew to the border. Yes, we could go to the bus station for a
couple of dollars each and still make the last locals bus to the border for only 0.50 USD, but since Martha hadn’t slept much, Dani made the decision to just pay the extra for a direct ride. One other traveler joined us to head on to Thailand, so the driver lowered his price to take all of us for 10 USD. He dropped off a bunch of other travelers in town, and dropped off a French girl working in Vientiane for two years and her friend. We still had a long ride out to the border, almost 20 KM away. 
Stamp stamp, we were out of Laos and between countries. We used the last of our kip to buy two tickets onto a shuttle bus for 4,000 kip each (0.40 USD). We stowed our packs under the bus and were over the Friendship Bridge built by the Aussies with lots of daylight left. Dropped off at the Thai border crossing, we willed out paperwork, waited online … stamp Stamp, we’re back in Thailand! 
It was strange for Dani to be happy about arriving back in Thailand after the slightly sour taste Bangkok had left in her mouth. Martha, on the other hand, was thrilled! Next stop was to see where her dad had been stationed during the Vietnam War! It turned out that the same guy from our ride to the border crossing, a Brit on vacation, was milling around. Are you going to the train station? Cool, let’s share another ride. With three, it cost us just 20 baht 
(0.70 USD) each for a nice car ride The driver of the car that took us the couple of kilometers to the train station was a character, picking up Martha’s bag to put it in the back of the car and saying, “Oh, 20 baht for you, 10 baht for bag!” The Brit’s name was Mickey, and he had found things in Laos to be too expensive for his tastes, which surprised us since we thought the prices, especially for accommodation in Vang Vieng, had been right on. We arrived shortly to the train station. At payment time, we paid 40 baht from our leftover stash; Mickey had a 100 baht note, and the driver handed Mickey back our 40 baht payment as change for his larger bill. No maliciousness there, however, as the driver stood there waiting for Mickey to take notice that he’d been shortchanged. We fin
ally pointed out that Mickey hadn’t been given enough change, so the driver pulled one more 20 baht note out of his wallet. Mickey accepted it and prepared to move on, still not thinking, but the driver was still standing there with a smile on his face. Oh, Mickey, look, shouldn’t you have more change than that? He ended up letting the driver keep the extra baht as a tip. We thought we should tip him too just for the show! Our train tickets to Udon Thani cost just 11 baht (0.33 USD) each for the one hour ride. Our travel continued at a smooth pace as the train left 10 minutes later. Our seats were on the last car of the train, and the weight of our packs kept us from lifting them up to the luggage racks above. So our seats were taken by our packs, but we had no issue with standing after so many hours on the bus sitting. A couple of kind Thai passengers offered to put our packs up on the luggage rack for us, but we declined their offer. We did ask one what time they would arrive at their destination, Bangkok—5:00 AM on the overnight train. We felt for them as they faces all night of sitting straight up in those hard chairs.
Mickey showed up and sat across the aisle, having opted to see what Udon Thani was like, as well. About an hour later we arrived in UdonThani right on time. It took us a minute to find a tuk-tuk in the darkness of night. He gestured ‘right there’ for the King Hotel we wanted, but wanted 60 baht to take the three of us. Mickey got him down to 40 baht for the three of us, and we were off. To our surprise (since there is no map of this town supplied in the Lonely Planet), our tuk-tuk driver ended up bringing us not around the corner, but wayyyyy up the street and down the block in this large town. 
OK, he was right to want to charge us that much—so we paid him 70 baht and checked in to the King’s Hotel. We took an air conditioned room for 270 baht—it was only 40 baht more than a fan room and we felt the need for some cool air. Packs down, we headed back out into town, stopping at an ATM and then at a great local’s place for dinner. Thai TV blared in the background, and we got our return taste of Thailand and ‘civilization.’ Ladies poured our beers and refilled our ice for us. Duck laap for 
Martha and fish laap for Dani took a while to arrive giving us time to decompress from the hundreds of kilometers traveled in the day. After ordering, Dani realized that laap probably was the Northern Thai (Issan) food that contained roasted rice flour—a flavor Dani didn’t like. And, we’d both ordered it so there was no option of switching. The meals arrived and Dani tasted with hesitancy. Yum
m, thank goodness. The flavor was there, but it was subtle and did not have the bad aftertaste Dani had found elsewhere. Since it’s the region’s specialty, they must know how to make it right! We enjoyed dinner and our conversation together, reflecting on Laos and figuring out our next steps in Udon and beyond. We walked back to the hotel stopping in at the 7-11 to look for more bug spray (which they didn’t have), and headed to bed almost immediately. We watched a few moments of TV coverage from NYC and had a moment of silence in memory of the Twin Towers. Amazed at how tiring sitting around can be, we fell asleep exhausted.
Wednesday, September 12, Day 122 ... Martha awoke with headache, so Dani typed a while until Martha felt better. We were both excited to get out and see the town. Martha found that there was a tourist office nearby (she’d picked up a map of town from the lobby of the hotel). We walked along the lake to the office, only to find it was closed. So we continued down ‘Safe Food Street’ to find breakfast/lunch, stopping at Relax, w
hich helped Martha perk up for the day. Martha had pan fried fish with carrots and cold French fries; Dani had a pork chop and salad. Not exactly Thai food, but it was a popular place with the locals and helped to settle Martha’s stomach. After lunch, we wandered past the number of stalls setting up in the afternoon. The map listed the area as a bustling evening market area—should we stop for afternoon foot massage for only 3 USD? Not now, we are on another mission! 
Back to tourist office, where it took three different people to reach the one that spoke enough English to tell us where the old US Air Force base was (he did not mention Army, unfortunately). He produced another map and circled some areas South of town that might be of interest to us. He also recommended some places where the local veteran Farangs got together to sit and talk about the old days. 
We set out down the street to find an Internet café so we could ask Martha’s dad for some more details about his whereabouts in the early 1970s. Otherwise we were just taking pictures of every street corner along the way! We noted a café that was close to our hotel touting wireless access on the door, but kept going since we didn’t have our computer with us. Martha’s sandals were literally hanging on by a thread, so she stopped in a store that had many options; the man sleeping behind the counter told her that they didn’t have her choice (or any?) in her size. The next place up the street did want to offer us some service, so she bought a nice, supportive pair of sandals for 300 baht (less than 10 USD). As Martha talked with the salesman, she mentioned that her father had lived near here with the Army thirty years before, and he cryptically mentioned something about him having built Udon Thani, then. Martha would have to ask her dad about that one. 
So many shops in this big, lived-in town. It was nice to be somewhere other than a routine tourist stop. As we walked the streets, snapping away at different street signs and the American-style 1970s architecture of many of the buildings, we stopped where a man and woman in their 70s were selling clothing on the side of the street; Martha noticed a shirt style that Dani had been admiring starting in VietNam, now hanging before us in Dani’s favorite color. Dani had been talking herself out of spending the money and carrying the item, but since it was so beautiful and in her favorite color… dar
n! Trapped. Before too long, we found ourselves way down at the train tracks, still no Internet café. Across, there was a sidewalk food market with vegetables, frogs, eels, fish out of water, turtles (certainly on sale as pets, mistakenly here in the food market area, right?). The heat was revving up for the afternoon, so we stopped at the 7-11 for a cool drink of Thai tea. Dani found that the saang thaew #15 would take us back to the block right behind our hotel, so we hopped on with the school kids heading home from their learning day. We paid 16 baht (0.45 USD) for the ride all the way across town. A larger market area stood between us and our hotel room, and we passed by complete pigs’ heads sitting along the street. But we also found a water filter machine to refill our water bottles instead of buying new ones all the time!
Back to the hotel, we enjoyed a quick nap in mid-day heat before heading to the café with wireless. Sooo happy to have such a strong connection and to be able to post on the blog, check e-mail, and research flight options to Eastern Europe to visit our friend Alisa in Bosnia! We were there until past closing time, finally getting a blog post live just as time ran out and the Internet access was shut down! We dropped off the computer in the safety of our room, which we locked with one of the locks from our packs for extra protection, and head out to find dinner. As we walked up to another popular locals’ place, we stopped to take pictures of the City Pilar Temple. 
Our restaurant for the night was a large open area that appeared to be a small former aircraft hangar, with its tin roof and empty openness. Martha’s fried rice should calm her belly. Dani felt silly after realizing she had ordered a spicy salad at a local’s restaurant in Thailand … and indeed it was REALLY spicy, gouramy fish salad. Not sure if that was intended to be ‘gourmet,’ or if ‘gouramy’ is a type of fish—it was small, deep fried, with edible bones and fins served too. It didn’t fill Dani up, though, so we stopped at the 7-11 once again on our way ‘home’ to pick up a steamed bun since the lady selling them on the street earlier had vacated 
her spot. Dani needed something to calm the belly fires. Back in the room, we read through the e-mails that had downloaded, and went to bed a little too late. 
No comments:
Post a Comment