Yet another cross country adventure

Our last stop in Laos was Luang Prabang, a beautiful city along the Mekong River. More than anything, we used this city as a epicurian adventure. We started out upscale to celebrate our one month anniversary, including a great wine bar with big beanbag chairs and comfy couches. Every other day, we decided to eat as cheaply as possible and find foods that we'd never tried before. This included a great vegetarian buffett where for 50cents we filled a plate with pickled cabbage noodle dishes, green papaya salad, mixed veggies, fruits, and the standard fried rice. We also tried this chewy dough that was grilled on a stick that somehow managed to taste like seafood. More importantly, we ate these yummy deserts: tiny pancakes that tasted like a breaded tapioca pudding, gooey green balls that were covered in coconut (suprisingly delicious), fried bananas, carmelized sweet rice with pineapple/banana, etc. Almost everything we tried was really good, but our luck ran out when we tried escaping from an afternoon rainshower into this tiny restaurant that was attached to a motorcycle repair shop (maybe this should have been clue number one). No one spoke English so we pantomimed until the waiter understood that we would like to eat. He came out with two steaming bowls of noodle soup that on first glance looked to be delicous. Turns out, it was random meat bits including intenstine and some unidentifiable, blueish organ and fish balls in a bland broth. We ate what we could and considered ourselves lucky for all the other great dishes we have stumbled upon.

Our plan was to fly out of Luang Prabang at 4pm Friday to meet a friend in Chiang Mai, Thailand and had bought tickets a week before. However, when we arrived at the airport at 1:30pm, a very distressed employee told us the flight had taken off 30 minutes ago. Apparently we bought tickets to a flight that didn't exist, even though it was on the airline's website and the travel agent had booked it. Ooops! We were disappointed to mess up our fun weekend plans with Michelle, but headed back to town to spend another night. The next day we got to the airport at 11am so we'd be there plenty early. However, our 1pm departure time came and went with no word from the airline. Eventually they came around with a little lunchbox and told us the flight would leave at 3pm. Once again 3pm came and went. The next estimate was 5:30pm, but since the maintenance crews were still straddling the top of the plane, this didn't look hopeful either. We were going crazy in this little two-room airport, so we headed back outside and found a tiny dirt road to follow. We were first met by a group of bison, and then found a little village behind the airport. Apparently this was not a place that "falang" (foreigners) ever made it to because the first little girl we saw started pointing and screaming. We walked through and found a restaurant to drink a beer at before returning to the airport. Our plane finally left at 7:30pm and we made it to Michelle's house, only 30 hours later than expected. Still quicker than our alternative transportation, which was a 2 day boat trip up the river, but needless to say we're extremely happy to be back in Thailand.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!
Team Wander