Lunch

We got back to Ponsavan and went to lunch at another of Toom's relative's businesses: A restaurant built out over the world's largest mud puddle. Actually, it was kind of cool. There were about 100 local kids with fishing nets trawling through the waist-deep water. Four local government officials were seated nearby tipping back bottles of Beer Lao like it was their last chance to get any.

The menu had spring rolls on it. Oh joy. It wasn't farang food, but it was something that I could really enjoy.

My spring rolls turned out to be a sweet and sour cabbage dish. "Spring rolls" was nothing more than a typo.

Sigh.

Well, Toom was more than happy to eat my (their) mistake. Besides, the girls had ordered "hot pot BBQ" which turned out to be the old standby, Thai bar-be-que. The charcoal was fired, the metal dish thingy was heated, the fat was sizzled, the water was poured, and Da and Toom proceeded to load all the fixin's. They didn't have my favorite spicy sweet sauce, but I managed to make due with Heinz Pepper Sauce.

When we left an hour-and-a-half later, the four uniformed guys were still at their table, surrounded by 18 empty large beer bottles.