Ha Long Bay

We booked a tour to Ha Long Bay for two days and one night. For the one night we stayed on a boat somewhere in Ha Long Bay. The bus ride from Hanoi to Ha Long City took four hours and then we boarded the boat. Because we booked a tour we were picked up at our hotel and traveled with fifteen other people, most of whom were young enough to be our grandchildren.

We were talking to one very enjoyable lady from London who mentioned her 67 year old grandmother. But, we all got along quite well. We even met with two of the group for drinks later in Hanoi.

Since we were here four years ago the government has decreed that all the tourist boats must be painted white, completely destroying the ambiance of the boats that were painted different colors. The trip itself was wonderful. Last time we spent a second night on Cat Ba Island, but this time we opted to go back to Hanoi. Ha long Bay is a UNESCO World heritage site and deserves it. The islands jutting up from the water are amazing. There is another bay further north that is just starting to get tourists and is where we will probably go to next time.

In Hanoi

We are in Hanoi, Vietnam. We took an Air Asia flight from Bangkok to here. We arrived an hour before Joyce's flight from the U.S. so we waited for an hour at the airport and met her. We all took a car provided by our hotel to the hotel. It is a lot cooler here than it was in Bangkok.

We are now in the land of good $2 bottles of wine, which Vang Da Lat, which is bottled in Da Lat, the honeymoon capitol of Vietnam.

We are staying in the old quarter, which is a crowded, chaotic area. We really enjoy hanoi, hope Joyce does also.

In Bangkok III

We are back in Bangkok. We took an eight hour bus ride from Udon Thani to Bangkok. The bus evvn provided a meal. it was a fast and easy trip on a bus that could have used new shock absorbers.

While In Bangkok we got our yellow fever shots to go to Africa. We also ended up getting two other shots that had expired. We went to the Thailand Red Cross and they were great. Almost painless shots.

Back in Udon Thani, Thailand

For our last meal in Vientiane we at at Ray's Grill. This time Laura ordered a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich on a baguette. It was delicious, and she was eating bread. Ray taught us how to ask for rice flour. We say "Bang Cow", at least that what it sounded like to Jim. With the Philly Cheese Steaks we had red wine, which Ray did not chill to cellar temperature. But, it was still a pretty good French Merlot.

This morning it was time to leave, so we caught a bus to Udon Thani. The trip took longer than it did getting there because the border crossings were jammed with Thais heading home after New Year. Anyway, we made it and checked into our hotel, @ Home At Udon, which is less than $20 per night and a bargain.

But, we did bring a few baguettes with us from Lao. At the bus station Jim said "Bang Cow" to a lady selling baguettes and she nodded and painted at the baguettes. So, Jim bought half a dozen which we have been eating all day. Here's a photo of one after it has been mangled in the trip from Lao to Thailand.

Couple of thoughts on Lao that we never posted.

At our hotel is a French couple and their twenty-something son. They are here to visit Vang Vieng where their other son died last year. Very nice couple and very sad. There is French woman and her two teenage children that are traveling around SE Asia for ten months. They came in September and go back to France in July. Their daughter goes off to college next year so she thought this would be her last chance to do something like this.

We had salted fish a couple of times. The fish is caught then the complete fresh fish is grilled over charcoal after dipping each side in salt. When we say complete fish, we mean it. The fish is served with its complete head, tail, and entrails, and stuffed with an onion in its mouth. The fish was quite good, but we left the entrails along with the bones and the head.

Ray From Seattle

There is a great small restaurant down the street from our hotel which is owned by Ray From Seattle, and his Laotian wife.

Funny thing about the restaurant is that Ray cooks mostly Middle Eastern food, felafel and the like.

We were talking and he informed us that in Lao most baguettes are made with rice flour, and not wheat. Laura was excited. She can eat the wonderful baguettes they have here. Mike said to be sure to buy the cheap ones because the expensive ones do contain wheat. Just like soy sauce, the cheap stuff Laura can eat, the expensive stuff has wheat added. And, he said, do not order any baguettes in a French restaurant or bakery because they will surely contain wheat.

Ray told us about the baguettes after we finished our meal so we bought a grilled baguette from him and took it back to our hotel to eat. Laura ate half the baguette and has not had any problems, so, it's pig out on baguettes time. Jim had ordered a burger which came on a baguette and he hadn't even noticed that it was made from rice flour. He thought it looked and tasted identical to a wheat baguette so he was very surprised.

A Wet and Crazy Time

Today we ventured forth, on the first day of the Lao New Year. There was music and water everywhere. People were drinking Beer Lao, singing, shouting and throwing water. There were pickups cruising the streets with people in the bed throwing water on people waiting along the side of the street to throw water on people driving or walking past.

Within a few minutes we, along with nearly everyone else, were soaked in the 99 degree weather. The main streets were like rivers. Water came at you from hoses, high powered squirt guns, buckets and pans. The entire town is like a beach party, without the beach.

We discovered that children’s swimming pools make excellent reservoirs for water to throw on people.

Amidst all this chaos the temple were full of people offering prayers, sprinkling and pouring water over the Buddhas. The temples were off limits to the craziness going on in the rest of the city, and were an oasis of calm.

It seemed like all the food sellers in town had pushed their carts to their favorite temple so the devotees would not go hungry in between wetting down the Buddhas.The temples often brought the Buddha statues outside the temple so people could pour water on them.

Pai Mai Lao 2555

This is now Buddhist year 2555. In Lao they practice Theravada Buddhism, which is one of the main types of Buddhism, and is the dominant type in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

In the English language Vientiane Times, which is published by the government, they had a couple of comments regarding Pai Mai Lao, or the Lao New Year:

"Everyone has the right to put soot on a person's face to indicate they had some deficiency or that their behavior was inappropriate in spirit and word. Instead of putting soot on another person's face they often use flour, which usually goes over the face, in the hair and on the clothes, mixing with the water which is usually already there.

"Visiting a temple over Pai Mao Lao helps to set people free from their daily worries and should bring them health, happiness and good fortune in the year to come. Laura heeded this advice at Wat Si Muang.

After going to Wat Si Muang, Laura was looking at cloth to buy and this salesman was particularly insistent.