Advertisement
Published: October 29th 2007
Village outside Vientiane
With Mr B in his village.Friday 26th October - Kietnarong and Jon and I arrived at Udon Thani and they saw me onto the bus to take me to NongKai. I then got a tuk tuk to the Border Control point where you are on your own as tuk tuks not allowed any further. You line up and then it is onto a bus over the Friendship Bridge dividing Thailand and Laos where you get a visa into Laos. Once this was done, I got a taxi into Vientiane, the capital of Laos and went to the Sausayle Guest House. My luggage was deposited on the pavement while I checked whether there was a room as there was big celebrations in the city. I was recognised from my prior visit and yes, there was a room. Before I had a chance to take my luggage in, a group of Laos people insisted I join them for a Beer Laos. What a lovely bunch of people and they made me feel very welcome. About three weeks ago I received an email from an organisation I had “purchased a leg” through and was told the recipient was a man in a little village out of Vientiane. I thought
Thailand
Loved King of Thailand - All over Thailand are photos of King and Queen - longest reigning monarch 60 years and will be 80 on 5th December it would be wonderful to meet this man, but because I was only going to be in Vientiane for the friday afternoon, it was not possible for me to be taken by the organisation to see the man. Naturally, I was disappointed as thought, was so close and what a coincidence that he was near Vientiane. However, during the course of the afternoon’s chatting, I showed the group the email and they became very excited and said “Mama, he is only about a kilometre from here and we take you there”. So after we all had lunch, into a tuk tuk I was put and off we went. It was a moving experience to meet this lovely man and he seemed very pleased to see me. From what I could gather though, he was not wearing the prosthesis and he kept putting my hand on his scarred stump and it was conveyed to me that “it was in hospital” so I assume maybe there was some irritation. I do hope the “problem” can be resolved and his dream of returning to work is fulfilled. The villages were such lovely people. They took our photo and I said my goodbye and
came away with a lovely warm feeling to think that I have made a small difference to a man’s lifestyle. I do not know the circumstances of his loss. On the way back to the guesthouse, we stopped at my tuk tuk driver’s friends and more Laos beer was consumed. When I came back to the guesthouse, I was quite tired so had a lie down and next I knew it was 2.30. I did not know whether it was afternoon or morning. It was morning!!!! So that was the extent of my visit to Vientiane.
Saturday 27th October - I was up creeping around the guesthouse at 4.00 as had to be at the airport by 5.00. Fortunately, the tuk tuk driver was asleep in his hammock so on went my luggage and we were heading to the airport but had a slight problem with the motor but a bit of tinkering and were on our way once more. There were a few other passengers out at the airport at that early hour of the morning. Finally, at 5.00 it was book in and wait for the 7.00 flight. Was the first time I have been on a plane
Thailand/Laos
crossing over the Mighty Mekong. that actually took off 10 minutes before departure time. So that was my final goodbye to Laos.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.2s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 12; qc: 49; dbt: 0.1547s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
