We made it safely to Laos and have been here for 3 days now. A lot has happened since our arrival and I would love to share it with everyone so bear with me if my story is long.

After 18 long hours of traveling from San Francisco to Tokyo to Bangkok, we still had more traveling to do before we reach our final destination to Vientiane, Laos. The anticipation was now killing me more than ever because I was so close to being back home. Our overlay flight from Bangkok to Vientiane was more than 8 hrs so we had to spend a night in Bangkok. Being that we had just traveled half around the world, the other SAILers and I were too excited to go to sleep so we decided to explore the area around the hotel. This turned out to be quiet an interesting venture. Not only was the direction of traffic the opposite of that in the States, we saw lots of dogs just straying in the street, we even saw some sleeping on the side of the middle divider. We also saw toads hopping in the middle of parking lot and had our first encounter of meatballs on a stick from one of those street vendor carts.

The next day, we had to wake up bright and early to catch the hotel shuttle for our flight. The only thing now keeping me from being in the Motherland was another hour and a half. Although, I had less than 3hrs of sleep, I stayed awake the entire flight so that I did not forget any part of my journey to Laos. Of course the first thing I wanted to do when we arrived was EAT, but we had to check into our hotel beforehand. We were picked up by a very nice fellow at the airport, who later helped us negotiate a price for our first “tuk tuk “ride, which we took to eat at our first sit in home restaurant, followed by a trip to what is called the “Morning Market”. This market is pretty much a big indoor flea market with everything from food to clothes to electronics. Amazingly, although we were all drained, we still managed to get picked up by Samantha’s friend for some night outing. He took us to a place serving something similar to a hot pot dinner, followed by a drive around town. The most exciting thing about my first night in Laos, hands down, had to be my night ride inside the truck bed around the city.  I felt HOME!

It has been mind-boggling to me how much we get done in a day. I have been sleeping late and waking up early. My days have started out with walking around and exploring town. It is especially important to get things done early because later during the day, it is so hot that it makes you lazy and slow at doing things. We also started school on Monday, which has been great. I must say that the Lao language is definitely not an easy language to speak and write. There is also so much to discover in our Culture and History of Laos class. I can not forget to mention the group’s visit to Donkoi Children’s Development Center. It was so much fun and the kids were so wonderful. They put on a performance for us, which included singing in Lao and English and a dance. I also met another Tai Lue volunteer while at the center which was exciting because our family were from the same area. We ended our second night in Laos with another “tuk tuk” ride to downtown, where we had dinner sitting along the Mekong River which felt so surreal.

My visit to That Luang is just one example that has proven that words and pictures is not enough, everyone has to experience Laos themselves to truly understand its magnificence. I am at a lost of words when trying to describe my feelings here, at times I find myself feeling chills or teary eyed with the realization that I am in this amazing place. Each day has been an adventure in its own. I still have so much of Laos to see and I just can’t wait. So far I have been eating everything I can get my hands on, but honestly, I have to say nothing beats my mommy’s home cooking.

The internet has been pretty difficult to upload anything so until I can share some pictures and videos, I hope you guys can use my journey thus far to get a taste of Laos.  I am truly having the best time of my life right now and the journey is so young still so I hope to share more soon.