The Wolves do Christmas

  Vientiane, Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Monday, December 29, 2008

Mike on Christmas Day

We woke up on Christmas morning on the best sleeper bus we've been on - at least it was great for me and Tom - it had double births with lots of leg room... not so good for Mike who had to share with a sprawling Laos guy... ho, ho ho...!!

Tom on Christmas Day

Anyway, we made our way into the city centre from there and checked into a guesthouse... and what a guesthouse!!  You know how usually by Christmas you are sick to death of Christmas songs and you pretty much want to snap any CD that contains Slade?  Well, I hadn't heard a single Christmas song all year, until I got to this hostel, and the effect was amazing... suddenly I felt incredibly excited and bouncy and was given a little chocolate with a bow on it as a present from the hostel... brilliant!!

Me and my Christmas breakfast

From there our first stop was to get Santa hats, which were readily available... And boy did we look cool!!  We then headed off to the market to do a bit a quick Christmas shop for eachother, being laughed at pretty much the whole time, due to our very fetching Christmas hats... we did also get a fair few 'Happy Christmas!' shouts, which was nice :)

Our Christmas presents :)

Then back to the room, we had a little gift giving ceremony.  I got Tom a rasta doll that dances and a butt scratcher (it was actually a salad spoon, but looked like a butt scratcher) and I got Mike a Laos phrase book and a ball...  Tom got me a beautiful Laos knife and Mike got me a digital watch and a DVD... Tom got Mike an electric shaver, and Mike got Tom a ball (the same as the one I got him!!) and a DVD... so I went for comedy presents and they went for much better practical presents... never mind!!  We also had some fake Ferrero Rocher, but no-one could bring themselves to eat more than one - they were RANK!

Christmas breakfast beer!

After that we headed out in search of a Christmas dinner... and while we did find one, it was fully booked... so we settled for Western food in the form of burgers instead :)  Then we all went and phoned home - I had a long web-cam chat with my mum, dad and brother, which wasawesome :) :)  and then we spent the rest of the evening playing pool and drinking Lao Lao whiskey... so all in all it was a thoroughly wonderful Christmas :)

The Lone Wolves after a herbal sauna

We didn't do much else in Vientiane... we visited a Wat that has hut next to it with a herbal sauna and sweated out some of Christmas, followed by an hour long back-cracking massage.  After that we went over to one of the Wat buildings and joined a group meditation session, which was a good introduction to meditation for us... we are thinking of going to a meditation retreat in Thailand, so it was good to see what it might be like.

So now we are heading to Vang Vieng, which is famous for it's tubing - getting on a rubber ring and floating down the Mekong... and we will be there for New Years and meeting back up with Tibbs... hoorah!  Happy new year everyone :)

Check out Tom's blog for a different perspective, and flickr for more photos!