Sa-bai-dee Laos. Sa-wat-dee Thailand

The morning started at 5 am. Chris saw the monks yesterday-I wanted to see them, too. I'm glad I woke up to see them because if I hadn't I would've regretted it, but the sight was exactly as Chris described. The only difference was that they were all carrying umbrellas this morning. 

I was surprised by the age of the monks-many of them appeared to be pre-pubescent. The older monks were teenagers. I saw a few "adults" in the mix. They wore the large basins over their right hips where they collected alms. 

We climbed back in bed until 7:30 and had a slow start to the day. We'd seen what we wanted to yesterday and it was raining. Perfect recipe for catching up on the blog and being bums in our room. 

We fly to Phuket, Thailand this afternoon so we had to pack our bags for a flight. We check Chris' bag with all the liquids (sunscreen) and I take the "must have" items-which means shoes, toiletries & medicines, an outfit and underwear. 

We checked out of hour hostel-our host was incredible. She does it all. In the midst of taking our breakfast order, she was checking in new guests and coordinating a tour for another. She was certainly the kindest host we've had. Always smiling & snuggling her 9 month old son. Chris tried to catch her name-she even wrote it down, but we still couldn't get it. She was just one of the many hard working individuals we saw in the tourism industry across SE Asia. 

I wanted to walk across a foot bridge to the other side of the peninsula. The guidebook said it would be closed in rainy season-but it looked fine to me when we saw it last night. Yeah-definitely closed. Chris said he wouldn't have crossed it given the water level and speed of the water. It didn't look that rickety. 

I said I wanted to see as many temples as possible today-Chris disagreed. You couldn't go two blocks without there being another temple-there were so many in Luang Prabang!! I no longer look twice when I see a monk nor think it strange when he is "acting normal." But we did find the one right next to our hostel, Wat Pa Phai. That makes sense as to why the monks pass down our street every morning. 

Just around the corner (two blocks) was Wat Saen. This Wat had boats for racing in the annual boat race festival. I wanted to see the boats. 

Chris' reaction once we saw them-why couldn't we have taken that up the Mekong? 

Although it was raining, I wasn't ready to be done with Luang Prabang. Although we'd seen everything we wanted to see, I couldn't help but feel guilty for coming to this city for such a short period of time. We can see most everything in a city in a day & a half. We even managed an excursion in our short time in this city-but I needed to be out in the city, getting its vibe for as long as I could. 

Chris obliged & we walked to where the Mekong & Nam Khan river meet (which makes the peninsula).  Look at all that fog!!

We exchanged a bit too much USD to Lao kip & had some extra to spend. My pedicure had grown and Chris indulged me in a pedicure. And by pedicure I mean polish change. I'd sold the idea of a polish change by telling Chris they had free coffee. No one offered him any. 

I'm pretty a sure I got what I paid for with this $3 "pedicure". My toe nails were rubbed with lime slices-that's a first. The girl was painting my second foot when her friend came and held the bottle for her. It was weird. 

They were on my last toe when her friend told me they didn't have enough polish and I needed to pick a new color. Thankfully the one thing we had this morning-time. Her friend painted one foot & she then finished & painted the other. The finished product is a bit of a disaster. At least now I have paint on all 10 toes, so it's an improvement over what I had-and she left my callouses alone!!

We headed back to the market street to enjoy one last dish of Lao larb. This was a meal I've been thinking about ever since Chris first had it (and I then had to order my own). It's ground pork with onion, garlic, and cilantro. The key is the spice. It was so flavorful. I'm going to have to look up this recepie when we get home. 

We took a tuktuk to the airport while it rained outside. Laos had yet another form of tuktuk and this one did not prevent rain from coming in the front. Thankfully it was a short 25 minute drive. 

The big to do at the Lao Airport were my fingernail scissors. I've flown in the US with them and have never had any problem. I flew out of Cambodia into Bangkok-same airline and they were fine-but today they posed a security threat. I wish airports would post warning about "no sharp objects" before luggage check. I think we'd have a lot more happy fliers if we could inquire about objects before having them confiscated at security. I was not my best self as I told them that I flew with them 5 days ago without a problem. Two officers then had a discussion in a foreign language-one shrugged, the other one told me they were dangerous. I wanted to tell them they are the best damn nail scissors I've ever had!! I'm still can very easily get worked up about it. I now know airport security is subjective. 

Sabaidee Laos. 

I told Chris I'd be OK once I got my Golden Arches. Seriously-foreign McDonalds is like McDonalds of the 1980s. Crispy, hot fries-not a single one soggy or cold. Perfection-McDonalds of my childhood. I only ever eat McDonalds when traveling-and tonight they soothed my scissor-less soul. I had three cups of American  ketchup. 

We splurged and got ice cream cones, too!

There is a great bank in the airport that doesn't have a limit on withdrawal and only has a $5.68 foreign transaction fee-Bangkok bank. I figured this out when we flew through to Chiang Mai. That meant we needed to determine our need for Thai Baht for the rest of our trip. There we are, Chris and I, sitting at McDonalds in the Bangkok airport and reviewing our trip budget & expenses via excel spreadsheets on our iPhones. Can you tell we met in business school? 

This McDonalds had free refills and after we drunk ourselves sick on Coca-Cola, we headed to the gate to fly to Phuket, Thailand. Phuket is the largest island on the Andamean side-and 100% touristy-but it's affordable and we don't yet know what we're doing, so it's our starting point. 

Our flight landed at 9:55 & after we collected baggage, there was no one at customs so out into the warm, think air of Thailand. We bought group bus tickets to 

Patong, our specific beach on Phuket. 

It was a long, fearful bus ride. Thailand drives on the left, which is still a bit scary. After being in countries where the max speeds were 40 mph and this guy was going 80+. After 10 minutes we stopped at a tourist agency to "determine where you are staying" which was also code for "buy a tour package from us." I took the opportunity to figure out the seat belt because, in an accident, I was first to go through the windshield. Our driver then seemed to get lost, was one street from our hostel & drive someplace else. We later realize that a passenger earlier in the day had lost a cell phone & wanted to check the van-so all 16 passengers inside had to wait-and it was nearing midnight.

Although it was late, you wouldn't know it from the streets of Phuket. Everything was lit up & full of people-I image this is what Vegas looks like. We took no pictures-we were tired. 

Our guest house has a king sized bed & is across the street from a major shopping center. It's also right next door to a 7 Eleven-the bright light up sign is outside our balcony. I'm so thankful I brought an eye mask for sleeping. 

This guest house a pretty great way to ensure you don't leave your air con on while you're out. 

We're back in Thailand for the next 8 days. Our goal is simply to enjoy some time on the beach-which may or may not be possible in this rainy season. 

I'll leave you with this picture of Chris. He's packing up the ponchos. He does such a great job of helping me stay dry & has never once got upset with me for my aversion to being wet. It's rained every day for the past 2 weeks & he selflessly takes care of the ponchos.