First couple days in Vientiane

For those people who do not know where Laos is: 

Lemme start off by saying that Laos is HOT. Worse than Louisiana summers- probably because many of the stores/ restaurants/ buildings here are not air conditioned.





Yesterday we explored a bit of the city, including the enormous riverbed alongside the muddy Mekong River.

I guess during rainy season / when the river is higher, the Mekong covers all the sandy area? But right across the tiny river is Thailand!










We went to "homeideal", which has everything from groceries to clothing to dishware to linens, and I ended up getting some "Western shampoo". Some of the Asian beauty products in Laos I try to avoid- mainly, the "whitening cremes" and the shampoos that have "pigments" in them.

There was a foosball table by check-out and Nick started a game with a little Lao girl.

I also found fanny packs. My mom really wants to find a "cute fanny pack", but most people have told me that there is no such thing.
















Then we went back to the hotel and accidentally took a 4.5 hour nap, which made us late for our group dinner.  We ate at Khop Jai Deu- like many restaurants here, the menu contains a massive hodge-podge of cuisine. I had the Chicken Butter Masala (aka Butter Chicken, an Indian dish), but others had Pad Thai, spare ribs, pizza, etc. etc. And our table drank a LOT of Beer Lao, which a coworker has appropriately dubbed "the Miller High Life of Lao".

Side note: there are not near enough chocolate desserts here.

We ended the night in a bar along the main strip in Vientiane, which I'm pretty sure was playing communist propaganda for a portion of the evening. The mojitos were meh, but made for excellent chasers when the bartenders brought out chicken feet...


Personally, I think chicken feet are disgusting. The ones last night were spiced, which is probably better than tasting chicken feet "original", but you have to crunch down on bony, cartilage-y, chicken talons. The texture killed me. And my hands smelled of chicken feet for the rest of the night.