Trip Report: Laos Day 1, Stuffed

I was up at 4:30 a.m., and my driver was already waiting outside my house for me for a 5:00 a.m. pick-up. (I do have to plug this taxi service: On Soi Diana, closer to Soi Buakhao than Second Road, there is a Family Mart with a taxi stand in front of it. They are very reliable.)

I was out the door at 5:00, and pulled up to the airport at 6:30 for my 7:30 flight. I do have to say that for future reference, arriving one hour before a morning flight from Bangkok is a little too close to departure time... better make it 90 minutes instead. I didn't have to rush or anything, but a mistake or delay would have caused me to miss my plane. At security, I did have to sacrifice my never-used spray-on suntan lotion that I bought in New York to the new anti-liquid American aviation security measures. Pricks.

I arrived in Vientiane at 9:00 a.m. (Future reference: Get a seat as close to the front of the cabin as you can to be the first off the plane in Vientiane, and the first to the visa / immigration counter. You'll avoid up to an hour of standing in line that way.) I was in a cab on the way to the hotel by 9:30. I had a motorcycle rented by 9:45. I was standing in line at the Thai embassy to get my 60 + 30 day tourist visa by 10:00.

(If you are thinking of doing a visa run by taking the overnight train from Bangkok and getting to the Thai embassy in Vientiane before 11:00 in the morning, when they stop accepting applications, good luck. It's possible... but I'd only give about a 50/50 chance of making it on time.)

The process of standing in line to drop off your application and passport — and then standing in line to pay your 1,000 baht for your visa — takes about 2 hours... which really sucks. It's one of the reasons I like the visa run service to Penang: I never have to get within a mile of the Thai embassy, and never have to stand in line.

After finishing up at the embassy, it was back down to River Road where I stopped at the Mexican Restaurant for lunch. The place is right around the corner from the hotel I'm staying at, and I've walked by it 20 times before. Since I've scheduled a visit to just about every other restaurant in Vientiane during this visit, I figured I should stop in there as well.

I had a nice beef vegetable soup for $1.20, and was able to eat about half of the chicken enchiladas ($4.90) I ordered before I was stuffed. It wasn't really Mexican food... just food inspired by Mexico... but it still was a good meal, and I took a doggy-bag back to my hotel room.

Once back in the hotel room (the Duang Duane Hotel... ask for it by name), I read my book a little while and then fell asleep. I woke up at 5:00, ate the rest of my enchilada, and read my book and watched CNN.

At 7:00, I went out to a restaurant across the street from the hotel called Kao-Nieow, which was a nice place to eat. I had ham and brie on a baguette, and two pitchers of Lao punch (the Laotian equivalent of sangria, but using rum instead.) I do have to say that after a liter and a half of Lao punch, I'm much more buzzed than I would have been drinking a liter and a half of gin and tonics back in Pattaya. Oh... there was a very good chocolate mousse for desert... total price for the meal $10. (It is really all there is to do in Vientiane: Eat.)

Anyway, from the restaurant, it was across the street to an internet café, and now I'm going back to the hotel: The Lao punch has worked its way through me, and I need to take a wizz.