From Nong Khai, we went to Vientiane in a minivan with a German couple. We were dropped off in the middle of town, and we walked from there to our guesthouse. The guesthouse had told us they had no fan rooms (“No. We no have.” is a response we got very used to), but sooprise! When we arrived, they had one for us. With a Western toilet. And a sink. And satellite TV. Were it not so disturbingly unsanitary, I might have hugged the toilet.

The first day, we just walked around town and went down by the river. Vientiane is possibly the sleepiest capital city I have ever seen, with only 200,000 people. It feels more like 200, which was perfect for me. Practically the first thing that happened (and we later discovered that this was a highly rare occurrence) was that a woman with a tiny little girl came over to us, begging. I DID NOT EVEN LOOK AT THEM. And they walked away! Imagine! No pulling on my clothes, calling, “madame, madame!” No jumping right in front of me, so I can’t get past! No following me down the road, making me look like a mean old bitch! They just walked away.

And then a little bit of my soul died.

After I completed my first heartless act, we decided to reward ourselves with lunch. After all, what better way to celebrate your immense wealth and prosperity by denying it to the poor and spending it on yourself? We went to a restaurant called BanLao Beer Garden, where T tried his first Beer Lao and I tried my first Lao banana shake. It was, hands down, the best banana shake I have ever had. I’m not sure what was in it, but I suspect there was just the tiniest bit of crack. And man, was it good. I also tried laap, one of Laos’ signature foods. The laap was also good, but it was overshadowed by the shake of love.

After a few hours of vaguely wandering around town, I got a pain in my back. Hooray! Time for my first massage of the trip! We went to a place called Mixay massage, where I got an hour-long oil massage for $4. It was quite possibly the best $4 I have ever spent, and when it was over, I tipped her $1. Look, I was still rich from ignoring the beggars, so I had to spend it somewhere.

After the massage, we decided to look for a place to have dinner. We cruised around town for ages, looking for a place, and then, down the street from our guesthouse, we found it: Khao Nieo. Khao Nieo is a small little restaurant across from a fancy French patisserie called Le Banneton. It had a garden outside, so we thought we’d give it a try. It was the best decision of the day, massage excluded. We made two important discoveries that night: I discovered that the baguettes in Laos are %%##*( great, and T discovered his one true love—dark Beer Lao.

Between Sydney and Vientiane, I had been so good at eating local food. With the few McDonalds excursions in China excluded, I ate local food at every meal, and I liked it. I had no desire to eat anything Western. That all changed when I tried the beautific baguettes at Khao Nieo, which were the best we tried in all of Laos. As for T, he was doing pretty well with his beer consumption. He had maybe one a day, but he wasn’t all beered up. Again, dark Beer Lao changed all that. He got completely cracked out on it, and started refusing to eat at restaurants that didn’t serve it. When dark Beer Lao was mentioned, he got a soft look in his eyes, as if he was remembering a particularly hot girlfriend, or a really big soccer match.

Unfortunately, there were some mosquitoes at Khao Nieo that night, and mossies like nothing more than feasting on my ankles, so on the way home, we decided to buy some Tiger Balm. We were most surprised when, instead of the jar of Tiger Balm, the woman gave us a tiny tin about as big as my thumbnail. When we got it home, we found that it was White Monkey Holding Peach balm, which is just about the greatest name for a mosquito bite remedy ever. It also works very well, and I ended up buying another tiny tin and a larger one, just in case. Who knew monkeys holding peaches made such a fantastic cure? I plan to make my millions by importing it into America, where it will clearly become much more popular than stinky old bag balm.

The next great discovery we made in Vientiane was at Lotus Restaurant (and yes, pretty much all we did in Vientiane was walk around and eat, so get over it). Lotus Restaurant was about 150 paces from our guesthouse, and when we first passed it, T noticed they served sticky rice with mango for breakfast. SOLD. I had sticky rice with mango for the first time on our honeymoon, at the end of our time in Thailand (in a post that I never got around to writing, but maybe one day, I will). I was like T with the dark Beer Lao. I wanted to get me some more sticky rice with mango, and I NEVER DID. It was a TRAGEDY. And so, when I saw it in Vientiane, I had to have it. And I did. And it was sweeter than a hundred golden retriever puppies, but I ate every last bit. And I loved it.

One of our goals in Vientiane was to get our Indian visas, which had eluded us in Australia, New Zealand, Bali and China. We didn’t want to have to wait for five days in Bangkok, so we planned to get them either in Laos or Cambodia, where we could take off while they were being completed, and then pick them up after a trip somewhere else. So we got a tuk tuk to the Indian embassy, for $8 return, which seemed a little spendy, but T didn’t want to haggle so early in the morning (it was 8.30am). We got to the embassy and went to apply for the visas. They take five days. Fine. You need two photos. Fine. You have to pay in USD. Not fine. T had called the day before and spoken to an Indian fellow who told him they take baht. I imagine that man got off the phone and rolled around on the floor, laughing his ass off at the funny trick he played on us. So, we ended up having to go back into town to change some dollars, so we could go back to the embassy so we could get the godforsaken visas. In the end, the tuk tuk cost $15, which is approximately the same amount as a bus to Luang Prabang.

Our final goal in Vientiane was to send some stuff home to America, so T had some more room in his bag and could stop his incessant moaning about how full it was, so we could avoid divorce. Here’s how the post office works in a communist country:

1. Bring your package to a table where a woman weighs it.
2. Move it along the table so a woman can fashion a box and have you fill out a customs form.
3. Pay the woman for the box.
4. Take the box to the man at customs, who makes a check mark on it, takes your customs form and asks you for some more money, for an undisclosed reason.
5. Take the box to window number 5, so the woman can send it for you. Take your little parcels to window number 7, because the woman at window number 5 doesnt do small packages.
6. Marvel at the fact that five people are employed to do the work of one person, yet thank God that its not Vietnam, where they just take your stuff and wrap it in paper and it arrives (barely), all torn to shreds.