My two day sojourn in Luang Prabang ended too soon. The hotel van delivered me to LPQ for the third Lao Airlines flight of this trip. LPQ was pretty quiet this morning, boarding passes were quickly issued and my bag was tagged to VTE. I had been looking forward to another flight on the MA60, but this flight was on an ATR-72. Service was the same. We arrived in VTE, I was able to claim my bag quite early. Waiting at the exit of baggage claim was the driver from Tai Pan Hotel and after a few minutes a young Japanese couple arrived and we left for the hotel. The Tai Pan was nearly as good as the more expensive Lao Plaza. Clean room and bathroom, an elevator that worked. The only major difference between the two is that Tai Pan cannot deal with fairly simple request. I wanted to book dinner at Na Dau, but did not have its phone number, so I asked the clerk to look up the number. He was completely stymied by this request. Finally, his associate arrived and sorted it out and a reservation was secured.

Na Dau. This restaurant is located by the local monument that looks like the Arc de Triomph. It was approximately a $2 songtao ride negotiated with the local songtao guy on the corner. Ten minutes later we pulled around the monument and arrived at the restaurant. My reservation was for 7:30, they were expecting me at the absolutely empty restaurant. Fortunately over the next hour three other parties showed up. Service was good considering the age of the servers. Prices were higher even than Le Elephant. Dinner for one of the most expensive tasting menu with a half liter of vin ordinaire with tip came to $30. This included an amuse bouche, salad, main, desert and cafe.
Everything was well prepared and tasty except the rather strange puff pastry, puried vegetable amuse bouche. After dinner, I wandered across the street to the plaza and finally found a songtao guy willing to take me back to the hotel for the same price. The plaza was packed with locals and I was the only strange face in sight. We took the scenic route back, near the hotel on the street fronting the Mekong, crowds were all over the place. It looked like every Lao in that part of Laos had come to town to have a good time. There actually was a traffic jam in not so sleepy Vientiane.

Note: You should change a small amount of $$ for kip since many locals do not take dollars.

The next morning, after breakfast (included in the rate), I walked around the area once again, but most of the stores were closed. Before I took the van back to the airport, accompanied by the same Japanese couple, I noticed a wooden box shaped like a Stupa on display in the lobby. It was quite unusual, and I inquired as to where to buy one, (of course, they told me the shop was closed, but would sell me one of the two in the display.) Turned out that it was a turned coconut, lacquered on the inside. It cost $15, not negotiable, and came with an official hotel receipt. I'm sure that I seriously overpaid, but it is a highly unusual piece.

At the airport, check-in for the flight to BKK was similar to that for LPQ. The exception was the departure tax rose to $10 for an international departure. Two amusing things occurred during the check-in process. Immediately in front of me were a couple with back packs and in the adjacent line were two Norwegian men with lots of poorly packed boxes.

The couple checked their packs. The male half left a large plastic bottle of what turned out to be Lao Lao (local rice wine liquor) in the pocket on the outside of the pack. After they left the counter, the agent noticed said bottle of fairly foul smelling stuff and removed it while trying to attract their attention so that they could carry it on board. You probably have noticed the disparity between our present liquids rule and how it is administered in Vientiane.

The second incident involved the two men, the agent and the many boxes. The boxes were so poorly packed that the china within was poking out the top. One had a large portion of what looked like a soup tureen top sticking at least six inches out of the box. Prudently, the agent refused to accept their boxes. She sent them out to get the boxes repacked. This is VTE and there is no packaging facility, but somehow, in ten minutes they found some string and wound it around some of the worst-offending boxes. Nothing had improved other than some flimsy string had been added. The assured the agent that the ceramics were very sturdy, that they were chairs and tables and very strong. She accepted the mess shortly before I left for departure.

Departure control required the purchase of the departure tax receipt, normal passport control and proceeding to the departure lounge.

Today's aircraft was an ATR-72. Boarding and flight was the same as all the others. Arrival at Suvanabhumi was on-time with a long bus ride to arrivals. I cleared immigration and went to the belt to await arrival of baggage from the flight. I waited and waited while all but the two ceramic-toting guys and I were the only ones left. The sign said "last bag", so I figured it was time to file a lost bag report. Thai Airlines has a baggage office that handles bag problems at BKK. We started filling out the paperwork, 15 minutes or so had elapsed, since the "last bag" was posted when a baggage handler arrived and stated, "late bags here.".

Sure enough there was mine going around. The ceramic boxes looked the worse for wear. I hope the two idiots enjoyed gluing all the shards together when they got to their apartment in Bangkok.

I exited the green line, grabbed a metered taxi to Rembrandt Hotel, Soi 20, Sukhamvit.