July 1st, 2015
The oldest trick in the book…..
Hahahahahahahaha, someone tried to get us today….but they didn’t know who they were messing with…..
But let me start at the beginning.
We did have a wonderful lunch at Ginny Cafe today. I had chicken with cashew nut and Troy had panang. Always solid choices, Ian and I did enjoy a thai iced coffee
Hold on….interruption! I am hearing Oh Canada blasted at top volume from somewhere down the street or across the River! Awwwwwwwww, that makes me feel great. Happy Canada Day!!!
Ok, back to the day. A very delicious iced coffee, Cafe Yen as they call it in thai….
Thank you Tee for whipping those up for us!
Then since we were to catch what is technically an international flight, we left for the airport at 1:30 for our 3:30 flight. Ian took us to the airport in his new car, which was a really nice treat not having to fuss around with a tuk tuk. That is Ian’s car on the right in front of the restaurant.
So off we went to the airport and all went smoothly, except for the grief over the mango jam
The small is about the size of a Dixie cup and the take home is just a little smaller than a North American medium. So you can figure out the rest. Regardless, this poses quite a dilemma as we are kind of in the “take home” range, but clearly can’t bring soft serve ice cream home with us, so we have to eat it. So there I was walking through the airport with not one, but two “take home” size DQ blizzards looking like a total pig, but really only holding what we would normally consider an average size treat.
Completely uneventful flight, tiny plane a 2/2 propeller plane, that was just like the last time we flew Laos airlines to Laos. It is a 60 minute flight and somehow they are able to take off, serve drinks, a snack, bring around customs forms, collect garbage and land all in 60 minutes. Isn’t that something?
So when we were waiting to board, Troy says to me “do you remember how much the trip to town cost?” Good lord, no I do not, BUT I bet I blogged about it….so I got on that phone (thanks for the international data Tmobile) and went back to 2012 when we were last here. There it was 50,000 kip. For an air con mini bus, 3 people max (that’s for a 7 seater Van)-weird I know. So after we come out of airport and go to bank machine to withdraw 2,000,000 kip, yes 2 million, we see what we would call a SongTao in Thailand, pull up dropping off some folks. He catches my eye and smiles and nods, so I feel good about him taking us back to town for perhaps less than the aircon mini bus??? I sashayed up to the girl who just got off and asked her if she spoke English, yes she does, so I ask her how much they paid. She says 40,000 kip. So this is good I think to myself. A whole $1.25 savings over the 50,000 kip airport arranged shuttle. My haggling husband however thinks we can haggle lower even. Once he had taken care of his other customers, I ask the driver how much to go back to the old town, he says 40,000 kip. I say “OK” and start to hop in. OOPS, forgot to haggle, and Troy gives me the look. I’m like, ah, it’s ok, I’ll let him have the buck. Well we peel out of there on two tires I am sure and are well into bouncing down the road when Troy says “did you tell him where to go?” Hahahahahahahaha I realize no I did not, but then again he didn’t ask, so I’m thinking let’s see what happens! The reason we squealed out of the airport was bcz the taxi mafia doesn’t let outside drivers come in and pick up folks like that….it’s all tightly regulated etc etc and price fixed. Thus the thought by Troy we could haggle him down, bcz he was picking us up illegally anyway and was going to have to go back to town with no fare. But anyway I was committed to the 40,000 kip. So as luck would have it, it’s like he knew where to take us as he literally drove right to our hotel and as he was pulling up I just tapped the side of the truck and indicated it was our place. Yay!! See it always works out. So this is where it gets exciting. So we try to pay him the 40,000 fare with a 50,000 kip note (which is all we have bcz duh, that’s all the bank machine at the airport where he picked us up, GIVES OUT!) he turns his pockets inside out and tells us he can’t make change, he just can’t….and so maybe we could just give him a tip, and he giggles and starts to put the 50 in his pocket. He had a 20,000 kip note but not a 10. So Troy says no, we are only going to pay 40, and he says again, “well maybe it’s just a tip then”. Now I’m getting mad, this is ridiculous. There is no way he doesn’t have change…..so I take his 20 and go into the hotel to ask for two 10s. Poor guy at the desk is like a deer in the headlights at this point and he couldn’t make change. So I come back out to the street and look at the guy and say, “I’ll find a store to make change”, so I take HIS 20,000 kip note and start walking. This guy (and Troy prolly too-although I secrely think he is now quietly cheering me on-you go girl!)looks like he can hardly believe this is happening. I didn’t have to go more than a block before I saw a small mini mart and asked the girl inside to make change, she did happily and even broke down the second 10,000 for me. So I came back to the tuk tuk driver gave him his 10,000 note and said “there you go”. YA, you don’t get that stuff past me, not anymore. All this over a $1.25. Buts it’s not the money, it’s the point and how he did it. All giggly, and teehee. Like we would just roll over. If I want to tip someone, I’ll tip them.
Ok, so that’s that. The best news ever is that we got the ground floor room at the Saynamkan with the patio in front. It’s perfect, I love it and I’m going to have the best week here! That’s where I blogged earlier and but when we came home after supper I only lasted an hour maybe bcz the mozzies got thick. I have bug spray on, so not at any risk, I just get irritated with them fluttering around and buzzing in my ears. Plus there were three french guys out there on the next patio smoking, so that was all kinds of gross, but they eventually moved on.
Our room is the first one on the ground floor right after the restaurant…We are moving to our old room (103) on the other end of the ground floor on July 4th when it becomes available. It is a little quieter not being right next to the restaurant. We are in 101 right now.
We were surrounded by smokers at supper tonight too which is reasonably unappetizing when you are trying to eat. These people (Europeans) smoke whilst eating their meal if you can imagine. It’s the most disgusting habit….
That’s my supper, I had sweet and sour chicken. So welcome to Laos, where they can turn the most benign meal into something spicy. Sweet and sour is a “no spicy” dish, but this sure had some kick to it. There were these little green peppers I could see and dig out with a lot of seeds. Troy says to me “are those bell peppers or ghost peppers?” Good lord, they better not be ghost peppers. But they were certainly NOT bell peppers. Anyway, several tissues later, it was a good meal. We wanted to have Indian food as we had an absolute favourite place here last time that had the most amazing Indian food. In fact we specifically only had Indian food once in Chiang Mai so as to wait to get here for this food. But as often happens, things change, and the place is GONE. So we will have to find other food to get crazy about. Troy had Phad thai and once again, while tasty, it wasn’t phad thai as we know it.
We walked down to the night market, jeez this is a great market, so much quieter and more civilized than the markets in Chiang Mai where you could just as easily get trampled as not.
May have bought a few things….but will definitely be going back! The view up and down the street. Very pretty french style architecture here, just like I remember….trying to add more photos, but it isn’t working anymore. Maybe the ipad knows it is past my bedtime. I’ll try again tomorrow😃
Also, It is really hot here, hotter than chaing Mai, in fact I just checked the weather and it is going to be an even 100F the next three days….yikes.
