It's funny the little things you miss. Our room came with a fairly well stocked buffet breakfast. It had fruit, eggs, cereal, butter, jam, OJ, etc. But best of all--a toaster so we could make our own toast. Toast in southeast Asia has rarely been crunchy enough for me. (It's usually stale bread warmed over). Ordinarily we're quite happy if we can just find fried eggs. But fried eggs and toast just the way we like it? It was great.

After breakfast we checked out of the hotel. We wanted to leave because the hot water didn't work, which you actually miss if your room is air-conditioned. Besides, we were paying for hot water. We asked them to fix it and they sent up a few guys with screwdrivers. They unscrewed stuff and scratched their heads and sent for more help. We would have changed rooms but the hotel was full.

We moved across the street to the Lao-Paris. We stayed for eight days and nights--long enough to rearrange the furniture once (because the air conditioner kept dripping, the staff finally had to move our bed). We spent most of that time writing to earn money.

Email costs 50 cents a minute in Vientiane (they have to call long distance to Bangkok) so we only used it for business. It was hard to see email from friends and not respond, but we couldn't afford to. (NOTE: A few months after we left Laos, we heard that Vientiane got a local server, so email rates should be much cheaper now).

We walked around town a lot. The buildings are a mix of quaint, if a bit run-down, French colonial houses with (peeling paint and long wooden shutters) typical Asian shop houses (Asian version of a strip mall), large concrete 1960s architectural atrocities (often abandoned), fancy hotels, temples, vacant lots, and the occasional oddball building. One oddball had the word "ATOMIC" written in big letters across the top.

The main streets are paved in the middle but filled with dirt from the curb for several feet out into the road. Crossing the main streets can take awhile. They are mostly one-way and the cars go in single-file. To cross we sort of worked our way to the middle until the traffic decided to avoid us by going behind us instead of in front of us.

Many side streets are just dirt. It's strange to see nice restaurants on dirt streets. I think Washington DC looked like this during the Civil War.

The sidewalks didn't get much respect. Lots of gaping holes opened down to the sewer. Some homes put fences across the sidewalk to extend the front porch. Parking for cars and motorcycles is the most common use. We spent a lot of time walking along the edge of the street trying to stay out of the dirt and mud while also trying not to get hit. Vientiane was laid back enough that even when we had to walk down the middle of the street and no one would even honk at us to get out of the road.

The city sits right next to the Mekong but so far hasn't done anything with the waterfront. Some construction was underway. Across the river, Si Chiangmai, Thailand has an attractive waterfront park (though barely used and not well maintained).

The most annoying thing about Vientiane was the beggars. The tuk-tuk drivers left us alone usually (unlike in Thailand) and the street sellers didn't pester us (as they did in Indonesia) but occasionally a beggar, usually a kid, would glom on to us for several minutes hoping for a handout. If we didn't give them anything, and we quickly learned not to, they would follow us, grabbing our clothes or backpack. So all the other tourists and locals can see that you're too cheap to give them even a few pennies. But we figured if we gave them money we rewarded their behavior. We occasionally gave money to passive beggars sitting in front of shops to assuage our guilt.

One night we went to a restaurant around a pretty fountain in a traffic circle. It was a pleasant place to sit and eat Indian food and drink Beer Lao--until the parade of beggars started. A surprisingly plump woman holding a baby walked up to every table and stood silently. If she got some money, she left. Otherwise, she hung out for a long time. If she detected any sign that you felt guilt she would stay longer. She broke the guy at the next table that way. After her, a few kids did the same thing. They'd stop at our table, rest their hands on it, and just stare at us while we ate. Joan gave maybe 100 kip (Laos currency, 3,420 kip = US$1) to one of the beggars.

Then Joan overheard an obnoxious expat at the next table tell her friends that she always tells people who come to Laos NOT TO GIVE KIPS! It ruins the whole country." (Joan: at first I was really mad at her because it was obvious she made her comment mainly for my benefit, but later I realized she is right).

We often rationalize that giving money to beggars creates a market for beggars and therefore we should keep our pennies in our own pockets. But if it ruins the country to give three cents to a beggar, what happens when foreign banks and countries give Laos 60% of its national budget? (Joan: ironically, my critic at the next table probably worked for some charity).

Despite all that we really liked Vientiane's atmosphere. The food was always good, the shopkeepers always friendly. Other than expensive email it was a perfect place to spend a week writing and resting. It was harder to leave than any other city in the Eastern hemisphere, except for Singapore.

The only tourism we did was to visit Vientiane's version of the Arc de Triomphe and its most famous temple That Luang.

One day we went to the American Embassy to ask whether it would be safe to ride on a certain Laos highway because we had heard it had trouble with bandits. Although 20 or so Lao people were waiting in the embassy, apparently for visas, we got an interview right away. We had to stand in a phone booth-sized room separated from the embassy official, one Gregory Lawless, by thick glass. Behind him I saw tons of computers, nice desk chairs, low cubicle partitions, laser printers, etc. It was sort of a shock to see such a modern, clean American-style office in Laos.

Mr. Lawless told us in a professional, detached manner that "we do not recommend tourists travel that road." The last "incident," he admitted, had been a whole year earlier. He didn't describe it. (We later heard that in the "incident", some bandits had ambushed a wealthy expat French businessman , murdered him and six or seven Laos companions, and stolen $40,000? in cash. Local people believed the bandits knew the Frenchman would be carrying a large amount of cash that day, and that they had specifically targeted him as opposed to randomly stopping cars on the highway). Mr. Lawless suggested we take a boat up the Mekong instead.

Next: Leaving Vientiane

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