First and foremost, Happy Belated Birthday Ching! Thank you
everyone for the lovely birthday wishes! It was a lot of fun. I think I’ll save
that post for a later date. I have a few other things to share.
Perhaps
you’re wondering about the title of this post. “Gushing water” relates to a
little adventure Sareeta and I had last Sunday evening. We rode our bikes home
after dinner with Kerin and Emily and were all ready for bed. We opted to
forego a stroll through the night market because it was getting late. As we
approached our door we heard a strange sound coming from our apartment. We
thought nothing of it, opened the door, and Sareeta joked that it “sounded like
gushing water.” Unbeknownst to us, there was indeed gushing water coming from
the bottom of the sink. We returned to our apartment and half of it was
flooded. My bedroom and the kitchen were covered in an inch of water. Fear not!
The crisis was averted thanks to “A”, a bucket, and a dustpan. Mr. A spent the
next hour shoveling water into a bucket. There was still a bit
of water on my floor when I went to bed, but the trusty Vientiane heat handled
that issue quite nicely.
Fred Flinstone is what I’m calling my bicycling adventure a few nights
ago. Sareeta and I were bicycling home after dinner at Lao Kitchen and took
Patuxai Arch road. I’m not entirely sure of the real name, but it’s similar to
the Champs-Elysees in Paris. The Arch is Vientiane’s very own L’Arc de
Triomphe. I digress. Anyway, we were pedaling along quite nicely and
approaching the middle of an intersection when my left pedal decided it no
longer felt like being attached to my bike. My pedal fell off in the middle of
the intersection. Thankfully, there were no cars around or that could have
gotten reallll interesting. Determined to not walk the rest of the way home (we
were still pretty far away) I opted for the Fred Flinstone method. I was
sitting on my bike and using my feet to propel myself forward. Unfortunately,
that was terribly ineffective. I was eventually able to develop a nice little
technique that wasn’t much slower than normal bicycling. Lesson #4: It’s
possible to ride a bicycle with only one pedal!
The third and final part of my blog title refers to our little trip to
Thailand. Since arriving in Vientiane, whenever I ask where to find something
the answer is always Thailand. Need a
motorbike helmet? Go to Thailand. Full rain suit? Thailand. Markers? Thailand.
Dress shirts? Thailand. Cool(er) fabric? Thailand. And the list goes on.
Needless to say, Kerin, Sareeta, and I were pretttty pumped to head to the
Promised Land. We didn’t end up doing any shopping, but we needed to “leave the
country” in order to update our visa. Within one hour, I filled out four
immigration forms: leaving Laos, entering Thailand, leaving Thailand, and
entering Laos. I felt like a stamp collector! I’m finally not technically only
allowed to tour because I have a nice little work visa in my passport! The
highlight of our morning was the Thai party bus! Twas prettttyyy sweet.
Hope y’all enjoyed the update. I’ve finally started taking
pictures so I’ll post more shots of the city in my next post. I’m off to meet
“Poo” for my first language lesson!
Peace and Blessings,
KB
No comments:
Post a Comment