A Romantic night in Thakaek

Hi,

Gemma and Daniella

After our hellish 6 hour journey ( picture being forced to listen to whiney Lao pop music at high volume  - it might be good but I am sure they only have about 5 different songs) , we arrived in Tha Kek, a town where it quicky became clear to us that Westerners did not venture here very often,  demonstrated by the many cries of `Farang, Farang` or Westerner that we heard from the towns kids. We found  a nice hostel and settled down for a quiet lunch. Daniella and my lunches were fine, but when Gemma`s arrived we were all left a little perplexed. There was a large bowl with about 2 cm deep of soup in it. We communicated ( by signals and sign language ) to the waitress that we wanted more but instead of returning with a more plentiful bowl full of piping hot delicious soup, she returned and placed on the table, the same bowl with the same amount of soup in it, only that it had placed in the microwave for ( I guess here ) another 3 minutes, reducing it to a solid dark mass ( we proved this was not edible to the waitress by turning the bowl upside down)....she then quickly understood that she had somewhat overcooked the soup. Needless to say this an example of the communication problems we suffer daily.  

Jon and a good old beer lao

As it was Valentines day, we ventured out into the town for a romantic dinner for two at a local restaurant/bar/kareoke joint. As there were so many midges buzzing around outside in the twilight, we requested a table inside the building ( but unfortuantely only 1.5 m away from the speaker). As we enjoying our lovely dinner ( apart from my squid which had been forgotten about) the karoeke bar staff started to get the equipment ready for a night of singing by the Indian owner who had clearly mastered the one non Lao music CD. This included Hello by lionel Richie, Hotel California ( very popular in Laos) and Words by Boyzone. He was very entertaining and for what he lacked in a singing voice he made up for in enthuisiam. What made it all the more special for us, was that we were the bars only customers  - so it was as if having our own personal seranade - how romantic!

Temple at sunset

The loop script