Wednesday 1 May 2013

Devyn and Xtina's day of rest!


Today was a chill day, Tanya went off and did her own thing as she needed to sort some travel-related things out, me and Devyn slept in til midday and had lunch at a different bakery, on the other corner just by us (so we didn’t have to do too much walking!) After, we went shopping for some things Devyn had seen for her mum and sisters, and we then went in search of massages, which was hard as it was Labour Day, so therefore a public holiday, so hardly anywhere was open! But we found one place down by the Mekong river side and so we had fabulous massages in an air-conditioned room...it’s the little things!

We decided we were going to go back to Big Brother Mouse so we did, and it was just as good as the first time we went, met Sai again and I was teaching another guy who was amazing at drawing! Turns out he was an art teacher for 2 years before studying computer technology as it pays better money, so he was learning English so that he could pass and get a scholarship to study this in Vientiane. He was only 23, and it was only him and his mum at home so he was telling me how he worries about leaving her alone as she was getting old, but that he hopes one day he’ll earn enough so that he can bring her to live with him or come home after his studies. He loved playing guitar and he hoped that working in computer technology would enable him to save for a new guitar and hopes one day to be able to travel to Siem Reap, so that he can draw/paint Angkor Wat. It’s these things that make you realise just how lucky you are. He has only left Laos once, and that was to Thailand on the border, a trip down to Cambodia from Laos, that would normally only cost us about £100 for the week, he has to spend a good chunk of his adult life saving for!

We then made the boys promises that we would visit the restaurants they told us about, Sai worked at the Blue Lagoon restaurant, which was an upmarket restaurant in town, so we said we would go there on our last night tomorrow evening. The guy who I taught (I am so bad with names), told us about a Laos BBQ place – a bit like a Khmer BBQ where you cook your own food – so we decided to head here tonight, it was just alongside the Mekong river, a street away from our hotel, score! And boy was it AMAZING!! It’s was all-you-can-eat (as long as you didn’t leave leftovers), for $5, and there was so much to eat! Noodles, rice, about 10 different types of meat and fish, veg, BROCCOLI (which is a rarity out here), and even a selection of ice-creams and fresh fruit for dessert! It was very popular with all the locals so we knew it was a good place to eat – why hadn’t we found this place earlier?!

After we headed back to the hotel room, Tanya had decided she was going to leave for Vang Vieng in the morning, a day before us as she wanted to have some time to herself for a bit so we totally understood and we’d be seeing her the next day when we arrived any way. Tanya and I then decided to head to the night market but we got there just as it was packing up – sods law! So we spent the night chilling again, as we had this huge day planned tomorrow, sunrise at the temple on the hill, morning market, massages, blogging so needed to go to bed early. No thunder storms tonight.

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