To the North! Beth had not had too much solid sleep the last couple of nights in Vientiane. The worries have been building up quite a bit for her...
- unknown small domestic airline - check
- potential for dengue fever and malaria in Laos - check
- rabies fears - check
- kids unable to swallow a malaria pill the size of a tic tac fears - check
- food and water quality fears - check
- Gibbon Experience worries (zip line, critters, all of the above) - check
She is a worrier :-). It's hard to relate for me, and for the kids? Well, they're too young to worry about too much for too long. Not being able to relate to the worries makes it harder for her, and harder for me, but Beth always underestimates her inner trooper and I never worry (that is apt!) that the nagging fears will actually overcome her. I do wish sometimes that the Internet was never invented.... For worriers, it tends to add more fuel to the fire rather than act as a comforting reassurance.
So the first fear to quash was our flight to Houayxai (there are about 5 spellings that I've seen, so that's the one I'm going with dammit!) in the Northern Bokeo province of Laos. There are really only two general reasons to go to Houayxai: those who are coming from Thailand via Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, and those who are interested in the Gibbon Experience.
The flight had been a little tough to organize. Lao Skyway, a small domestic airline, is the only airline that flies to Houayxai. When I was trying to get the flight about 6 months ago, I was having a tough time. The airline had limited flights (I think two each week), the boat getting us out of Houayxai after only goes twice a week, and the Gibbon Experience required payment up front. Compound those challenges with the fact that no flights showed up online for a while, rumours were that the airport had been flooded out and when I finally saw the flights online, the system wouldn't accept online payments...... Argh! So I started calling this woman every few days for a week or so around midnight my time to try and figure things out. Eventually she made it so the flight was confirmed and I had until the day before departure to pay, which was great, but this was all just a verbal confirmation over the phone.
So when we arrived in Vientiane, I walked over to the domestic terminal (sounds like a heroic effort, but it was 50 meters next to the international terminal!), went to the Lao Skyway ticket desk, and by just saying "I have to pay for a flight" the woman behind the desk said "I remember you" and smiled. So awesome!
Back to Beth, she was just fine. She may have forced most of the blood from my right hand, but once we got on the plane and she realized it was just a regular turbo prop plane (with wicked little snacks by the way!) she was good. Worry #1 - scratch!
The cool chicks next us also seemed to enjoy the snacks!
The "airport" was kind of cute, as was the baggage offload procedure. Basically a pickup truck takes all of the bags, drives up to the terminal building and then everyone "has at it" like a bunch of North Americans ripping and tearing at a Thanksgiving turkey. When we got our bags, we walked around until a quiet local eventually informed us he would be our taxi service. Ok then!
The hotel is pretty shit, but we kind of knew that in advance (there's not much around, and most of the hotel inventory in town is rated very low). When we checked in, I had Beth and Abby go check the rooms before we accepted them - a process we used to do when checking out prospective hotels when we backpacked and which we hadn't done on this trip because of the level of the places we've been staying at. Abby came down and said they were both good but her and Beth would be taking the room with two single beds while Robin and I would be in the one with the master bed. When Robin and I checked our room out, we found a dozen big black carpenter ants in the sheets. Nope! I went downstairs and got another key from the mindless automaton behind the desk. Our new room has no sign of ants, but an hour later we found ants shooting out of the aircon in Abby's room.
You know, I'm impressed with Beth and the kids. We all just dealt with it - I sprayed bug spray all around the AC unit and killed the ants with tissues, while the kids reloaded me with fresh tissues and disposed of the dead bodies! Spraying the bug spray and seeing the ants pop out of the woodwork really reminded me of an overnight in Dhaka, Bangladesh 17 years ago... But I will NOT share that story right now!
Now part of what made Beth and I not care too too much about the ants was this. We were going to stay 2 nights here, then do the Gibbon Experience, then one night back in a Homestay that supports disadvantaged women to kill time until our boat trip. Luckily, we were able to move the Gibbon Experience up a day, book a 5 star hotel for the 2 nights after the trip (took 2 minutes on my phone and zero minutes of guilty conscience about losing 1 night's fee at the crap hotel that was already paid for). We did visit the women's Homestay and I told them we had to cancel (it didn't look great) - she offered to refund the 25 Euro donation I had given them (they don't charge for rooms, they just ask for a donation - smart, unless you have uber cheap backpackers, which we saw a few of lounging around) which was nice but unneccessary.
Our hotel does have a redeeming feature: a cool view across the mighty Mekong River to neighbouring Thailand.
We did a little housekeeping - got 4.5 kilos of laundry outsourced (I love paying for laundry by the kilo, I don't know why!), did our pre trip meeting at the Gibbon Experience headquarters (Beth was not happy that they were relaxed and seemingly fun loving and not one bit worried about the list mentioned above!) and played about 3 hours of Asshole President, a game that is becoming a family favourite.
We did have a couple of great meals - particularly dinner. I'm not sure why, but Beth has always had the worst luck when it comes to ordering the wrong thing at restaurants over the years. Tonight, we all ordered different chicken curries with rice and Beth ordered..... Muesli, fruit and yoghurt. Our meals were amazing - it would almost convince me to stay at the Ant-Stay Inn a couple of more nights. Beth tried to put on an "I'm loving this muesli for whatever f%$?ing reason I ordered it" face but she couldn't fool us and we let her have it. She laughed, and that was a great sound to hear and an awesome sight to see!
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