Ch-ch-ch-changes
Lots has happened since I last visited my blog and wrote. Let's just start with -- we sold our house and cars in Tampa, moved to Zushi, Japan and I'm now home (or world) schooling the kids. So here we are. We've been living in Japan for three months now and absolutely love it. We not only love the country, but also our opportunities for travel, which brings me to Laos. In November, we took a trip to Laos for nine days. We stayed with an amazing host family in Vientiane (who I met via Facebook thanks to my friend, Christy) and also traveled to Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng. I'm going to break up our Laos holiday into a few different posts. Today, I'm going to share days one through three...
DAY ONE: Long flight and arrived in Vientiane late evening.
DAY TWO: Started our morning with a fantastic breakfast (sticky rice mango pancakes and cafe Lao) at a hidden restaurant tucked away in a little alley, visited two beautiful Buddhist wats (temples), walked throughout the morning market, walked up the Arc de Triomphe, rode in a tuk-tuk, ate an awesome Mexican lunch (good Mexican is super hard to come by in Japan), scootered around Vientiane with the littles and had a yummy traditional Lao dinner back at the house, thanks to Ms Lei.
DAY THREE: Woke early to see the tak bats (monks) receive their morning alms in front of our host home, drove to the village of Ban Katkhai, took a 40-minute long-tail boat ride on the Nam Mange River to a hiking trail, where we trekked (or rather hauled ass) for two hours through the jungle (learning about things, such as medicinal plants and poisonous trees along the way), ending with a swim in the Tad Xay waterfall and eating a traditional Lao lunch with our guides. Once back in Vientiane, we walked through the night market and had dinner at a rooftop restaurant, which overlook the Mekong River.
