Laos

Hello. Well, we made it to Laos after an interesting journey. We took an overnight train from Bangkok to the Nong Khai on the northern border of Thailand. Our train left at 8:45 PM and at about 9:30 they came around to make up your "bunk" and that was that. We woke up and they delivered Melisssa a Pepsi(coke not available on the train but abundant everywhere else in Thailand) and Julie an "instant" coffee and two hours later we arrived in Nong Kai. We took our first tuk tuk ride to a recommended guest house, http://www.mutmee.com/ right on the Mekong river. Lots of mosquito's but it was quite pleasant except for the toilet situation. We've run into them a few times in Thailand but we think it's now going to be the norm rather than the exception. We are a bit off the main travel circuit now. The toilet is either a hole in the ground or a somewhat western toilet, but there's no flushing. You have a basin or bucket of water next to it with a plastic bowl and you throw water in it to flush. No worries, we are adapting "okay." Not great but "okay." Annie, there was a Yoga retreat going on while we were at Mut Mee, you would love it there! In Nong Khai we found a shop that sells silk items made from the local village, absolutely beautiful stuff and we couldn't resist and bought a few things for our import party upon our return. We are now in Vietianne, Laos about 22 km across the border, to get here we had to cross the Friendship Bridge which is the only bridge over the Mekong in northern Thailand. It was built in 1993. It's about 3:30 local time and we are meeting our Servas hosts at 5:00. There were only 2 Servas hosts in all of Laos and we are lucky enough to be able to stay with Bruce and Jodi for 2 nights. Believe us, we have LOTS of questions for them. We've never been to a country like this. There's not even a railway system. And the road to get here was bumpy at best. We'll share more about the country of Laos later. Bye for now!