In early January, we were very excited to get word that our close friends Lee and Jamie were going to come out from the Bay Area to visit us in Laos.
I’ve known Lee for well over twenty years and we’ve stayed close throughout that time. We’ve been roommates, dive buddies, travel companions on a month-long road trip around the U.S. in camper van after college — not to mention he was a groomsman in our wedding.
We might throw around the term “auntie” but we’ve reserved “uncle” and “aunt” for “family.” Lori and I each have one sibling, meaning that Noe stands to have very few aunts and uncles as it (though he’s got more awesome Great Aunts and Great Uncles than he can shake a teething toy at). For all intents and purposes, Lee and Jamie are family, thus the titles. All this to say that Noe had his aunt and uncle visiting this week and we couldn’t have been happier to host them.
Their visit began as our other visits have — with a short driving tour of downtown, Patuxay (above) and That Luang.
Noe did two days with us and two days at his school this week. He joined me and our favorite tuk tuk driver, Mr. La, on a trip to the airport to pick up our visitors. Their flight from Kunming was a bit delayed, but luckily Noe found it an opportune time to take a long nap on me in his carrier while I pondered the food offerings at the Wattay airport Dairy Queen — hot dog, chili dog, cheese dog, chili cheese dog, chili cheese pepperoni dog. I’ve never wanted a hot dog more in my life, but knew trying to eat a hot-dog-with-everything-on-it wearing a sleeping baby was a disaster in the making. Got to save something for next time…
In addition to taking Wednesday off to join us, Lori was also able to meet up for lunch with us at various places around town. Here, we’re at Kheg’s, one of our favorite lunch places.
In addition to the usual sights and oddities in Vientiane, we added Kua Din/ Talat Sao market complex to the list. I like to start visitors in the most “local” part of the market and work our way up through the various phases of construction (and “sophistication”). Personally, my preference is for the fresh market section of Kua Din, but I know a lot of Laotians prefer the more urbane enclosed/ air-conditioned (and downright hideous) shopping mall of Talat Sao. Sorry, but you just won’t find vendors napping next to chunks of raw meat and fish in Talat Sao.
Watch your head there, falang nyai.
Two liters of ice cold BeerLao at your table. And a field of bog butterbur in the background.
Lee and Jamie made sure I got caught up on my drinking while they were here. They also gave us a great excuse to visit Chokdee Belgian Beer Bar for something a little different.
Couldn’t resist grabbing some Khao nom kok (Lao coconut cakes) on our walk around downtown. Yum.
It was a hot one, so we ducked into a coffee shop for a while before heading over to Wat Si Muang, home of the magnificent City Pillar (the original, not the new one across the street, of course).
Still bundled up cozy and still as magnificent as ever.
For lunch, we hit my favorite lunch place in town — PVO. I like the restaurant over the noodle house (a couple blocks away) because I come here for the banh mi! Delicious banh mi. Everything else on their menu (like the noodle soup and Bi/Bo Boun) is also very tasty. But my heart will always belong to their banh mi.
Noe enjoys their swamp coolers, of course. He’s a big fan.
In the late afternoon, we took a stroll down to the beach for sunset beers on the Mekong.
It’s been smoggier than usual the past couple days, so we came a little early to catch the sun before it disappeared behind the “fog bank.” Seems that there’s a lot of field burning going on right now in the countryside. Vientiane has little heavy industry and relatively few cars, so the vast majority of haze/smog comes from agricultural burning and seems to clear out in a day or two or with a good rain. But we ain’t seen no rain since November in these here parts.
Vientiane Night Market.
On Lee and Jamie’s final day in Vientiane, we tied up some loose ends by visiting That Luang and surroundings before meeting up with Lori at the new Doi Ka Noi.
After Lori finished up at work, she grabbed the Mister at school and fetched us at the house. As luck would have it, just as we were packing up the pickup to head north to an eco lodge about an hour’s drive away, it started raining. Like real rain. Like a big ol’ storm with thunder and lightning, the likes of which we hadn’t seen since early November in Luang Prabang.
But we made it to our destination and all was fine and good…until it wasn’t.
This was our first time visiting Rivertime Ecolodge up on the Nam Ngum, and, apart from the rain, was exactly what we were looking for — a tranquil and rustic weekend getaway less than an hour from town.
We enjoyed dinner and drinks on their floating restaurant, staying out well after sunset. The next morning, we were due to head north to Vang Vieng for two days of jungle hiking, cave exploring, swimming, bar hopping, and relaxing before Lee and Jamie departed for a few days on a Thai beach before heading back to the U.S. But it wasn’t to be.
Noe had been extra fussy since we left Vientiane, and had a tough time going to sleep. We assumed it was a number of factors — change in routine, over-tiredness, being in the carseat for too long, or even the storm (the manager’s baby was also being fussy, which she attributed to the weather).
It ended up being one of our longest nights up with the Mister, with just a couple hours sleep and Noe sleeping on my chest for much of the time (which he generally isn’t keen on doing). In the wee hours, it was clear that something wasn’t right, and in the morning, we jettisoned our Vang Vieng plans and headed back to Vientiane so that Noe could be examined.
Lee and Jamie were able to move up their flight to Thailand so that we could focus on Noe. I was devastated that our time was cut short, but it was clear that Noe needed attention. In the end we saw Uncle Lee and Aunt Jamie off at the airport — bound for Railay — and headed to Thailand, ourselves — just not the beach, exactly…
