First Day of Vacation

Rick picked me up at my house with the car that he had hired. (850 baht one-way to the airport... not bad.) We had a nice uneventful trip to the airport, with conversation mostly consisting of me picking Rick's brain for Thai language tips, since he speaks quite well.

We arrived at the airport, and had Burger King for lunch, and then caught our 1-hour flight to Udon. I had brought my very detailed flipbook map of Thailand along, hoping to follow the ground details out of the plane window and comparing it with the map, but was lost within minutes, and didn't find any landmarks afterwards.

We were met at Udon Thani airport by Da and her best friend, Toom. We hired a van to take us 45 minutes to the border at Nong Khai for 1,000 baht. Rip off, but that seemed to be the going price.

I figured out early on that Da had brought Toom along as potential "travel companion" for me since Da was going to be going with us throughout our entire trip. I thought it was an excellent idea to tell the truth. It balanced the group out to two couples, gave Da somebody to talk to and kept her out of our hair should she go off the handle, and basically (in hindsight) made the trip oh-so-smooth in every facet of the experience.

We were stamped out of Thailand and then put onto a transit bus for 75 cents and crossed the Mekong into Laos. Getting into Laos is almost exactly the same process as getting into Cambodia: Fill out visa form, pay for visa (dollars only please), get stamped into Laos, pay border fee, and then you're done. (Da and Toom had special border passes that get a more cursory treatment.)

We went over to the parking lot where there were 3 motorcycles parked: Da's, Toom's, and Da's sister's. Da's sister was waiting with Da's and Rick's little girl, Sara. Hello's all around.

Rick got on Da's motorcycle with Da, and I was given the keys to Toom's motorcycle and we drove off into Vientiane. The border crossing into Laos isn't actually in Vientiane... but about 20 miles to the southeast. Therefore, we puttered along the highway past lots of factories and other initiatives many of which seem to be put together by foreign nonprofit interests. "Deutschland Happy Fields Project In Partnership with the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic Pesticide Factory"... that kind of thing.

We arrived in Vientiane after about a 30 minute trip. Rick was quite unhappy with the condition of Da's motorcycle, seeing as it had no front brakes, and an exceptionally small amount of rear brakes. If I was going to be driving Toom's motorcycle for any length of time, I felt obliged to chime in with the fact that her suspension was totally shot, she had no horn or turn signals, and her brakes were no dream either.

So after checking into a small hotel on one of the sois close to the river, the first order of business was a visit to the motorcycle shop where both Da's and Toom's motorcycles were stripped of their outer facade, had new shocks put on front and back, had new brakes put on front and back, and had their electrical systems put back to working order. Rick and I drank Beer Lao as we oversaw the workmanship, and marveled at the mechanics' ability (along with the motorcycle design) that allowed all of this work to be done in less than 45 minutes. Total cost? Thirty dollars each motorcycle.

From there, it was off to La Terasse, on the same soi as our hotel. This is Rick's favorite restaurant in Vientiane, and it is easy to see why. It's that wonderful combination of almost-the-best food, and almost-the-best prices. The four of us had cocktails, six soups/salads/appetizers amongst ourselves, four high-end entrées including two steaks and a roast duck, wine, and four desserts. All of it for $50.

After that, it was out to a gorgeous old colonial mansion turned into a bar for some drinks, and then finally back to the hotel.