Thursday: Phonsavanh – Vientiane $37, 40 minutes
Yet more rain during the night. Breakfast at the neighbouring hotel on an omelette, it not being soup, then a bread cake as well so all is in order. The next business is to find some postcards at the market area near the Post Office but there are none to be found.
I buy some small airmail envelopes to enclose brief notes, except that when I sit down in the P.O., I find that I do have some postcards, two of the Plain of Jars, and one of masks from Luang Phabang, so some people will be in luck. My normal rule is not to send postcards until I have viewed the area depicted, and this sometimes leads me into difficulties.
There are plenty of other difficulties available. At the counter I stand by the sign for letters to be sent overseas and wait. Six men are standing around behind the counter; one finally motions me off to the side where parcels are being dealt with, but also a fellow is cancelling stamps on envelopes. I wave the cards to catch his attention and via sign language indicate that I’d like to post them. He takes the cards and disappears, returning to motion me back to the counter where the same fellows continue to stand about, then a lady rushes out from a side office clutching a folder of stamps. Aha! And, some of them are new to my collection so further purchases at face value rather than as prepared sets at collector’s prices. Ah, but they’d be complete sets, so it is vexation either way.
Back to the hotel at ten a.m., just as the rain resumes. Charles is anxious as he thought that 10:30 is the flight time, but the ticket says “report”. And once again he is out of local money as his credit card is useless here, so after the hotel bill I’m wiped out of local funds too.
The others are setting out on a second tour, to visit the Vietnamese border and more war craziness on the way, such as the cave where hundreds of local villagers would shelter by day and which was attacked because it was known to be used as a hospital by the insurgents. One load of missiles from a Laotian Air Force plane killed them all.
Is it any wonder that the US agents complained that their “advice” was often carried out with reluctance if at all? Colonel Kurtz in the film “Apocalypse Now” was based on the CIA chief in Laos, who over most of a decade without a break in this maddest corner of a demented war steadily lost contact with sanity. And the endless rain is right too.
We however don’t fancy more derangement, and our host conveys us and some others to the airport in the Land Rover. The distance is rather more than the five kilometers stated earlier, over the usual muddy, potholed road, but there is no need for haste. The terminal building proves to be a wooden shack with a gravel floor; even so, we face officials. The passport check costs K500 and the flight check-in K300, then the waiting begins. I go for a stroll between showers. A well outside shows that the water table here is all of eighteen inches down. Nothing much happens.
At 1:30 there is the sound of an aeroplane, a turboprop of Chinese manufacture according to Knut. It circles through drizzle and mist, then lands. People straggle away and our baggage is loaded onto a truck. When we see people straggling over towards the plane we join them. No announcements, no sign of emergency services, just a runway on a plain in the rain.
Boarding passes are collected at the foot of the stairway, then it is up and crouch. Where is seat 33? They’re numbered 1 A,B,C,D then 2, etc, and there are not 33 rows. Ah, a free-for-all. At least we do not have the bench seats that Knut gloomily expected. At my first opportunity of a seat, the child adjacent is scared, so mum motions me forward a row. This time the child is only surprised. Charles at first has no seat, but some kids are moved to mums’ laps so he is accommodated also.
We take off at 1:50, almost immediately losing the ground in cloud so not having a window seat didn’t matter as the bomb craters couldn’t be seen anyway. Suddenly, there is an air pressure surge in the cabin, and white mist pours from all the ventilation slits. Chill air has met 100% humidity.
The flight is uneventful. We are served a lolly, and a small cup of Pepsi, but no chicken, so the chook wandering around the waiting room was safe. Just as we approach Vientiane we break out of cloud for a brief view of the city on the bank of the broad brown Mekong, then down at 2:30.
After a pause while Charles collects his pack, away to the passport check (free here!) and out to confront taximen. It will be K2,000 into town. So, how much money has Charles got left? He doesn’t know, so we go aside to check: about K300. Ah well, there is nothing for it but to break in to my stash of mint banknotes, and hope that I will be able to find replacements for my collection later.
We get to the Vannasinh hotel at 2:45, and by this time it is full. Charles messes about chatting with the boss, but I go off to the bank to change money before it closes at 3:30. On returning, he was ready to move in to the room, on the belief that the boss had said that rooms were available, but no, what he had said was that he is having more rooms built around the back but they’re not yet available. So away we go.
The first place we try is full, and I’m mindful of the Canadian couple at the bank who said that they had got the last room in their hotel just as another couple came in searching. Further on around the back streets is Hotel Syrie, an old-style hotel but with posted prices of $20 and up. We’re shown a nice room, butÂ…Another room, no bath, for $15? That will do, despite Charles’ cringing. To have to come back here after a failed search would not be a good bargaining position.
So in, and wash. A very tricky shower yields scalding water on almost every attempt. Now that we can spread our stuff around, Charles discovers K6,000 he’d put away somewhere safe. Grr. Out for dinner at restaurant Ha-Wai, on filet mignon. Not a noodle or chook piece in sight.
