So this morning we were awoken around 6:15 am in our room with no windows to someone (sara swears) was puking next door. The one thing Sara hates most to see or hear, we can't seem to avoid. It was a great way to wake up in a place that I (Tyson) was desperately trying to sell Sara on to begin with.
After slowly waking up and dozing off over the next hour, (it's hard to get up in the pitch black) we were up and ready to go by 7:30 am. We decided to get to the market before the tons of tourists who we know to also love markets. So off we go, past a giant stupa (turned into the middle of a traffic circle) past the US embassy, complete with cement posts that could pop out of the road to stop traffic, armed guards, barbed wire, security cameras, and 20 plus foot high walls, to the market. We got there a bit after 8am to realize that we were basically the first people of any nationality there. So we walked around a more than half closed up market for a while. We did end up buying a very nice silver bracklet for Sara with elephants on it. We decided to leave around 9am for breakfast, and the place still wasn't functioning, some morning market.
We had breakfast at the Scandianvian bakery which included some amazingly delicous crossiants. After we completed our breakfast we went to the National Museum which is housed in an old French Colonial building. By what they say about the French inside you think they would have taken a note from the past of this country and burned every one of those buildings down. There was one room for dinasour bones, one room for the 50 plus ethnic tribes of Laos, 3 rooms for some dutch explorer, and then the remaining 7 rooms were one the struggle to defeat the Imperialist Americans and their colonial pig followers. Lots of Communist propoganda and pictures of war, and the struggle. After that we went back to the hotel to move rooms. We waited over an hour to move from a place with no windows to a place with windows, unfortunety the place with windows also had a door, which I was informed misquitoes could get in, by Sara.
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Then we went back to the market in the afternoon and found it humming along, but couldn't find anything worth buying. We were going to go for a walk through the suburbs hoping to find the rice paddies, but the heat was way too much to handle, so we went to Joma's bakery, a Canadian run place with Canadian prices, for a drink and cookies. After we waited out a short rain storm we went back to the hotel and read our books until dinner. At dinner we listened to expats complain and talk about life here, which was interesting but not noteworthly.
Tomorrow we are off in the morning for a 3 hour bus ride to Vien Viang, see you there. Don't have the camera here, so you'll have to wait again, sorry.
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2 comments:
We found the same problem, lots of the markets in Peru didn't open until 10! How hot is it in the afternoon, is it humid too? It's pretty hot at home, yesterday it was 30 and I was sweating up a storm just walking down Whyte Ave. Can't wait till you are home and we can get an Sbux or DQ!! Have fun!
It is pretty hot here too, mid thirties plus some wicked humidity. Mid afternoon is the worst 2-4 which you feel like you were in a steam room when you are outside because you are covered in sweat. Kayaking helped because we were in the river.
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