It’s another early morning today, leaving before breakfast is even being served to get to the airport for our 9:15m flight. We, of course, wheel our suitcases down to the lobby ourselves, and set off some big huge alarm throughout the entire morning staff. One of the housekeeping ladies who was mopping the pool area starts shouting and waving her hands at some other guy, and before we know it they have descended upon us, taking our bags and ushering us to the lobby. We’re not used to such attention!
We check out, pay our final tab, and are handed breakfast bags for our drive to the airport. The driver takes the luggage, and off we go, through the quiet, still sleeping town of Hoi An, and the just as quiet Da Nang city. We arrive at the airport after almost an hour – for some reason it was very slow going at the last bit of the route – but we’ve still got plenty of time to check in and hit the club before boarding our flight to Hanoi for a 2 hour layover before our final segment to Luang Prabang. Before we know it, we are in Laos, handing in our visa forms and paying our fee, then grabbing our luggage and finding Mr. Ping who will drive us to the apartment/house we have rented close by the Dara market area.
Tara is our landlord, and she is one of the founders of the Traditional Arts and Ethnology Centre (TAEC) which we had visited during our previous stay in Luang Prabang. Mr. Ping deposits us into his Jitney and we take off for the house, arriving in a little less than 20 minutes. The house is awesome. 2 bedrooms on the first floor, with a large bathroom and walk in shower. A bamboo fenced courtyard, And a 2 motorbike garage. Up the curved polished wood stairs there is a large open living space with sofa, TV and dining area and a nicely equipped kitchen forming an L off to the side with another 1/2 bath. There are also 2 great patios – one on the front of the house which gets tons of sun, and has no furniture, so we are thinking, not a great place to hang out. But the patio on the back of the house, off the top of the steps is covered, with furniture and a fan, and a great view of the neighborhood houses, the mountains in the distance and Mt. Phousi, the huge temple on the top of the mountain in the center of town. This will definitely be our hanging out location.
We get settled and organized and head out into town. It’s 3:30, and we’re sort of tired and just want to reacquaint ourselves with the town, so we head over to Sisavangvong Street, the main street of the town, looking for a place to just hang out. We end up at Tangor, a bar/restaurant we liked last year, where they have a happy hour which is just beginning. We end up sitting there, on the patio overlooking the street, relaxing and gathering our second wind. It’s hot, we’re tired simply from an early morning and the hectic nature of flying anywhere, so it’s nice to just sort of chill here on the patio with cold drinks and watch the world go by.
On our way home, we stop at the grocery store to stock up on essentials, then freshen up and head to dinner. We don’t really have any single place in mind, but we’re thinking of maybe heading toward one of Tara’s recommended restaurants, Rosella Fusion. But it is sort of far, and we’re not really in the mood to walk that whole way, so we end up stopping at Sabaidee restaurant, which is directly across from Brother’s House – one of our favorite restaurants from last year (which, btw, is now getting terrible reviews because they have supposedly upped their prices, reduced the amount of food and even changed the BBQ grills from charcoal to electric – shame!). There is no one there, only the staff who are eating – I guess we are a bit early, even though it is approaching 7 – but they smile and seat us, and we throw caution to the wind and order their BBQ. The BBQ takes a while – because we are the first customers and they have to get the wood and coals hot (it’s not like it’s electric), but we don’t mind, we have nothing else to do, and the meal is fantastic. Not a huge amount, but quite enough to be filling, along with 2 eggs for boiling and a copious amount of noodles we dip into the broth that is boiling on the sides of the grill. Excellent! A great first night meal for us here in Laos.
We easily navigate our way back to the house (it’s only one little alleyway off the street), and hang out in the blissful A/C until we are ready for bed.
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