April 25
Today, Paulie and I arise very
early to get a jump on the retrieval of the passports. After a coffee gets us up and going, we find
a tuk tuk to take us (once again) to the Chinese Consultate where we are
keeping our fingers crossed our Visas will be ready for us to take our
passports along…..especially since we have an afternoon flight to Luang
Prabang, Laos. Sure enough, we wait only
a very short time before getting them back in exchange for the amazingly
expensive cost of $750! Cost for a
Chinese visa if you are American = $150 per person; Cost for Chinese visa for everyone else in
the world = $20…..urgh. We stop by a
MacDonalds where we purchase hash browns for the kids and get back to the hotel
where we are happy to dole out the first “American” food they have had in a
long time. We get packed and checked out
by 10:00, but the hotel agrees to let us swim in the pool before our departure
time of around 1:00. This gives me time
to book a hotel in Luang Prabang, something I was waiting to do until I knew we
had our passports. Paulie takes the kids
around the corner for breakfast and we are all ready to head out by our
anticipated departure time. We give
great thanks to the staff here who have been really nice to us throughout our
stay and take off down the street in search of a songtaew. We find a driver on the corner and lo and
behold Hudson and Annie have negotiated a great price for all of us to go to
the airport….way to go kiddos!! We pile
in and about 20 minutes later find ourselves back into the real hustle and
bustle world of flights and schedules.
We pass through security without a problem and have a short wait time in
the terminal. Hudson is pleased/scared
that we will be riding on a propeller plane and as he always does, becomes
giddy because he really does not like to fly.
We board the Lao Airline plane from the back – interesting – and make
our way to our seats. The flight is only
about half full so we have our choice of seating arrangements. Our flight lasts only about an hour during
which time we are offered drinks twice and a box lunch. This is like taking four giant strides back
in time…..remember when service was expected to be friendly and food and drink
we of course offered free of charge???? We arrive in Laos and then the hustle
to get the Visa at the border begins. We
have read in travel books that it is best to have US$ to pay for the visa,
otherwise you get a horrible exchange rate and end up paying almost twice the
rate for one. Unfortunately, we only
have enough US money for three of the Visas and no local currency to cover the
difference. They agree to accept Thai
baht, but when they show me the amount I get per baht, I almost faint. “Is there an ATM here?” Yes, but you have to pass through security
first. Somehow, when I wave my ATM card
at the security officers they allow me to pass through without proof of
passport or visa in order to get money to procure a visa – Funny! I successfully get the amount of Lao “Kip”
that we need and pay the agent, before being moved to another line where our
passports are stamped. As ususal, we are
the last people from our flight to pick up our bags and head out to the taxi
stand. We inquire about the cost of a
taxi and are quoted $30 for the ride.
“No way” I say….”there is a sign right there that says taxi to town is
$6”. To which I receive the reply, “That
is for only three persons”. “Well then,”
I reason, “five people should be $10, right?”
So yes, in the end, we get a taxi for $10 which I am not convinced was
the best price we could find, but whatever.
We check into our hotel and then walk around the most quaint town for
about an hour or two then return to the hotel to rest before dinner. This is a really cute town with old colonial
French architecture dating from the mid-18th century. There are beautiful wood floors and shudders
on all of the houses and the handicrafts in the local stores are just
amazing. Luang Prabang is located on a
peninsula between the Mekong River and the Nam Khan River. It is laced with wonderful walking streets
and once the gas light lanterns are lit along the street, it really comes to
life. We go off in search of a hotel or
guesthouse that is a little bit less expensive than our current
accommodations. On the recommendation of
our friends Lee and Sarah, we check out a guesthouse down by the river and it
turns out to be a great deal although we do not go the extra step of of seeing
the rooms. We then continue our stroll
down main street, window shopping along the way. I am a bit confused by the prices that are
marked in that I had thought that Laos was much less expensive than
Thailand. Once we get a lay of the land,
I am certain we will be able to bargain with the best of them. We walk around looking for a place to eat and
end up at a small café along the Mekong River.
After ordering a large bottle of water, we begin to get bitten
mercilessly by the mosquitos. We can’t
stand it any longer and pay for the water and take our leave of the riverfront
for dinner elsewhere. We return to the
main drag and find an Indian restaurant and pull up at the table for five. We finally manage to get a handle on the menu
and get our order in. The food begins to
arrive and then all of a sudden all of the electricity goes off, not just in
our restaurant, but on the whole entire street (could have been the whole city
as far as we know). The emergency lights
come on in the back of the restaurant which works well to at least see our meal
for all of about 2 minutes and then……..Whoosh…..the entire restaurant (could
have been the whole city as far as we know) is covered in flying bugs. They are swarming around us and sticking to
us and getting caught in our hair and flying into our mouths and doing, god only knows, in our food. We retreat outside to the darkened street
along with all of the other inhabitants of the restaurant and we start swatting
them and hopping up and down. Working
off this meal before we have even eaten it!
The town remains dark for about 20 minutes and then the lights come back
on….we inspect the damage to our meal…..and continue eating….Weird. After dinner, we browse the night market and
find a couple of must haves before returning home….sweaty and tired (with bugs
in our hair). We look forward to a good
night’s sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment