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Published: March 17th 2013
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2 Jan: I don’t know if it was general tiredness from the lack of sleep over the last few action packed days or if it was an actual illness, but I woke up feeling queasy, tired and sore. Unfortunately I had an early morning flight to Vientiane that I had to make if I was going to keep to schedule. I struggled to keep away during the flight and started taking antibiotics as I figured they couldn’t hurt. I arrived in Vientiane with a bit of a fever and hot/cold sweets.
I arrived at my accommodation and just crashed, waking up a few hours later that afternoon. While I didn’t feel any better I thought it might do me good to get out – I hoped to find an air conditioned cinema or mall where I could escape the stimulation of yet another new location. To my relief I found on a tourist map a large image and advert offering what appeared to me a very modern western wall a few blocks away.
I set off into the afternoon heat. I happened to pass the American Embassy, which was heavily fortified and guarded (a hangover from the secret war)
– it felt like I was being watched by a hundred eyes. Shortly thereafter I arrived at the location of the mall. My weakened sprit was crushed when I found what had been a modern mall in the late 90’s had fallen into neglect and had been converted to a multi-level bazaar of cheap shops and dirty food vendors. There was no running air conditioning and if there was a cinema I could not located it. On top of this I went to use the ATM machine and for some unknown reason it rejected my card and a few others I tried also rejected my card. It was the closest I’d come to losing it – no cash, no reprieve from the over welling crush of a foreign culture and poor health I called it a day and went back to my accommodation to sleep it off.
The next day (3 Jan) I felt no better and spent most of it sleeping in bed – over a period of 24 hours I ate nothing and only drank fluids. My spirits were lifted when I found that I was able to watch some college football bowl games – something I’d
not done since I left the States.
That afternoon I was able to get out and about and went to the National Museum, which I found to be very entertaining. In short, the displays looked no better than the paper-mache dioramas that I would have done in the 2
nd grade and the rooms dedicated to the history of the “secrete war” looked as if the photos and text hadn’t been changed from the 70’s – phrases like ‘imperial dogs’ and ‘the puppets of the imperial dog puppet master’ were a reminder of the days when the Laos government didn’t have a great relationship with the USA government.
I was feeling somewhat better the morning of the 4
th and was looking forward to getting out of Vientiane. Unfortunately due to my illness – not certain if it was food or water poisoning, exhaustion or something else I found I had no found memories of Vientiane and actually hated my time there – something I generally never feel about a new place (Milton Keynes aside, ha ha…).
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Glad you are feeling better
There is nothing worse than being sick in a crappy room. We loved our time in Vientiane but we were there during the boat festival. Really glad you are feeling better. On to new adventures.