Lao: Our Unexpected "Vacation"

The story begins about a week ago, when we discovered that although it has been done in the past, it was no longer a possibility for my boss and I to switch our visa type while still in Thailand. Great! Quickly all sorts of issues now come into play. One being that we have only a limited amount of time before our visas expire. Two being that we have to go to a country with a Royal Thai Embassy. Three being that we have to find the cheapest way to get... well wherever we are going. My vote was for Australia, however, a ticket to Australia costs about as much as a ticket to the States. After a lot of hunting and thinking we picked our destination...Lao!

Our plans were:

• Leave Chiang Mai on Monday morning/Stay in a hotel in Thailand
  
• Tuesday finish the trip to Lao and cross the border/ apply for the visa
  
• Sight see/work on Wednesday
  
• Pick up the visa on Thursday, cross the border and travel as far as we could
  
• Friday finish travelling and arrive in Chiang Mai

Highlights:

• Marvel's homemade muffins and cookies
  
• About twenty caution wild elephant signs throughout one of the four mountain passes we drove through.
  
• A giant snake in the middle of the road
  
• Eating dinner (typical Thai noodle soup) at about 7:30 in a parking lot of a gas station at a roadside stand
  
• Being nervous while crossing the border that the strange man who showed up and grabbed our bags was about to take off with most of our important earthly possessions. He ended up driving us to the Thai Embassy and then back to the border on Thursday.
  
• A strange conversation with the men at the desk in our hotel, I didn't understand most of what they said even though it was in English. The part I understood one of the guys asked if our country was hot right now. I said no, thinking that he meant the States. His next sentence was about the weather when he visited Thailand. Not sure, but I think he actually meant Thailand when he said "your country" which is pretty exciting to me.
  
• Thanks to the suggestion of a friend we found JoMo's cafe which wonder of all wonders served real cheddar cheese, actual ham, and bagels!
  
• Dinner with a Lao friend (actually none of us knew him, but he was a friend of a friend so...)
  
• Walk down by the Mekong river which runs between Thailand and Laos. Our cell phones picked up the Thai signal so we were able to make calls. :)
  
• Lao handicraft shops
  
• Amy and I ventured out on our own our last day and had a nice long breakfast at JoMo's cafe with coffee!!! We then walked around a bit and shopped in fun little stores. We also went down to the river again just to see what it looked like in the day time. It was still pretty. :)
  
• In our hotel room killing over 20 mosquitoes in a span of five minutes, and then being eaten alive by the remaining mosquitoes. I even got some bites on my face. Yuck. Praying against malaria. ;)
  
• Wandering around town seeing the capital building, a historic tower, and the stadium for the Asian games.
  
• Eating "khaw lam" which is sticky rice mixed with coconut milk baked in bamboo stalks
  
• Bartering with tuk-tuk drivers who were upset when they couldn't get us to pay prices that were WAY too high (Amy and I were uncharacteristically strong)
  
• Trying to calculate costs: 1 Thai Baht is equivalent to 256 Lao Kip. When paying for dinner I felt like I should be buying a car since the price was about 30,000 Kip. It is actually only about 117 baht or about 4 dollars.
  
• Good conversations with Joel (our boss)
  
• Our stay at the "Grand" hotel which was definitely sketchy and our room was right above a karaoke floor. Loudly sung Thai songs in the middle of the night by drunk people...not so pleasant.
  
• Numerous gas station squatty potties, which at night time actually turn out to be where all the neighbors show up in their towels to shower.
  
• Laughing hysterically listening to Carmen's On a Mission from 1998 while sitting in an extremely long line of cars trying to go to Big C (where we stopped to buy our lunch of apples and banana bread)
  
• Buying ice cream cones at a "K Mart" which is not at all like K-Marts in the States.

The trip was super hot, sweaty, and long but we laughed about everything and really had some quality time. The Lord clearly was with us and enabled things to go smoothly especially at the embassy. Thank you for your prayers!!

Photos:
Amy with her "khaw lam."

The rules at the hotel in Lao, we thought they were quite entertaining.

Joel and I in a tuk-tuk. Our only mode of transportation other than our legs.

Amy and I at what we think is the capital building or something similar.A view of Vientiane, Lao from one of the sides of the big tower. The big tower that in the plaque is called, "a monster of concrete" which was never finished due to violent times in Lao history.