Last Sunday at Phong Phet

This may be a surprise to some of you reading this, but yes, it's true, today was the last day of worship at Concordia Lutheran Church Phong Phet. Due to various reasons (many of which, I'm not completely clear on), the members of the church voted to close the church and join in worship with our friends at Journey Into Light Church. It was a very hard decision for the church members to make, but overall they decided it was what needed to be done. Some of the members will find churches nearer their homes, while others plan to join the rest of us at JIL. As hard as it was for the members to have to close the doors of the church after 9 years, I think many people are looking forward to joining in fellowship with our other Lutheran brothers and sisters in Christ.

Laos

Well, it has been a whole 3 months already since I came back from the States in May, so that means...visa time! This trip took Sarah and I to Laos with our friends Ping and Bruce who were also going to take care of visa and passport business.

Once again we found ourselves at the same AirAsia gate as when we last travelled to Chiang Mai together in March. I enjoyed most of the flight until they announced on our approach into Udon Thani that we needed to turn around and go back to Bangkok because the weather was bad. This is where our trip started to get interesting. When we landed, they were unsure how long it would be and the time kept changing, so we decided to walk around and grab a bite to eat at the food court. When we came back to the gate the situation was still the same and several people told us we could leave the gate area, that it would be awhile. Well, have you ever seen Home Alone, where the whole family is running through the airport? Ping just happened to stop a guy wearing an AirAsia jacket and asked him if the heard anything about when the flight was leaving when the guy is like, "oh, you're the 4 people missing". So he radios to the gate to wait for us, we run down the terminal, jump in a van, race to the plane, and run up the steps to 60+ people rolling their eyes at the stinkin' Americans holding up the flight and we just throw our bags in the overhead compartment as they seal the door and start taxi-ing the runway. Our laughing and giggling didn't help the alleviate the rolling of the eyes, and shaking of the head situation.

We finally made it to Udon Thani and found our chauffeur who was to take us to the Laos border. The border is not exactly user friendly, so I was thankful to be with Bruce who knew the system. As we waited for our passports to be handed out, Bruce was busy already changing his sim cards for his cell phone. But we made it and met up with Ping and her brother Sounthone on the other side. Ping and her family are from Laos and now live in or near Vientiane, the capital city. It was too late for us to go to the embassy, so we checked into our guesthouse and went to a local coffee shop Joma. The atmosphere of this place was just amazing. Not just Joma, but the whole city it seemed like everyone from the expat community knew each other. Or there were a bunch of backpackers that were there exploring. It just seemed like wherever we went we ran into the same people. I mean we were in the capital city, but it was still intimate, like it wouldn't take long for you to get to know people and your way around. I also remember feeling like I wasn't a foreigner, which was really nice. Ping's friend came with her son to visit us, and we just spent the afternoon relaxing, sort of going from one coffee shop to another. We also got pedicures before dinner, which was a nice way to pamper ourselves.

For dinner that night, we went to the river front and found a stand that was making BBQ chicken, sticky rice, som-tom and pork. I ate so much my stomach hurt afterwards. It was soooooo good though and the food tended to follow the same theme throughout our trip.

The next day we went to breakfast at Joma again and then hopped into a tuk-tuk for a ride to the Thai embassy. Our wait was really long, but Sarah and I listened to Jim Gaffagin(sp.) on her iPod. So while everyone else was staring at he back of other people's heads, we were laughing and giggling while getting strange looks. Poor Bruce, I offered to let him read my book. He instead complained to Ping about us later! We love Bruce.

After that ordeal, we went to see the Pha That Luang Stupa for a few photo ops and then picked Ping up from another coffee shop. Are you starting to notice how much coffee is drunk here? Before we ate lunch we hit another tourist spot, the Patuxay (Victory) Monument where we got some exercise and climbed to the top for a bird's-eye view.

That's me under the second 9 in 1909! Sarah and Ping are to my right. We ate at a french bakery. This is one of my favorite parts of going to countries formerly colonized by the French, they have such good food, and it's relatively inexpensive!

I'm pretty sure after this we dropped stuff off at the guesthouse and then went out for books and, you guessed it, coffee.

This time the coffee came iced and in a bag. We promptly headed to a Internet cafe to get out of the heat. Something I desperately needed because I was about to pass out! It was good to catch up on emails. Another event that will forever go down in history, is that Sarah's coffee bag broke and leaked all over the floor. The mop didn't do much to clean it up. This was Bruce's moment of payback. For the rest of the trip he continually reminded Sarah about that time she spilled coffee all over the floor of the Internet cafe. This led to even more teasing, which I managed to stay out of the receiving end. It must be because of the months and months of endless teasing Bruce has gotten on behalf of being surrounded by us girls all the time. LOL. It still makes me laugh thinking about it.

We spent the afternoon in a Swedish bakery, drinking more coffee and hanging out with Ping's friend and their 2 kids. Dinner was at a nice French restaurant where I got to have french onion soup and a delicious pasta.

Our last day. We started out at a different Joma for breakfast and then headed to the bus station to find out about the bus ticket situation for tomorrow. After that we went to a market so I could by Laos silk for my collection. We found Bruce again and met Ping's brother who drove us over to their Dad's house. We got to see where Ping grew up, and meet her dad all while watching Michael Jackson's funeral coverage on CNN. For lunch we went to a Vietnamese restaurant for spring rolls. Did I mention that all of the food I had in this city was absolutely amazing? I can still taste it! In the afternoon Ping's brother Sounthone took us to pick up our passports and new visas at the Thai embassy and we headed back to the area near our guesthouse to hang out until that evening. Ping, Sarah and I got foot massages, then we all split to do our own thing. I went back to the Lao-Hmong handicraft store (Cama Crafts) to buy one of the handmade quilts I had spied the other day before. It is so beautiful, and I figured it was an investment. It is Queen or king sized so I can't use it in my apartment. Instead I have it on display for now.

For dinner, Ping's other brother invited us all over to their house. We had laap, som-tom, khao-niaw, guy-yang, moo ping and it was uh-maaazing. Those foods are papaya salad, sticky rice, BBQ chicken, BBQ pork. We didn't even bother with forks or spoons. With the sticky rice you don't need them. Overall it was nice to just hang out with them and talk. The four of us went our for refreshments later on and then called it a night. The next day we went to Joma for breakfast and I hung out with Bruce until my bus was about to leave. Sarah and Ping had already headed to the airport for their adventure in the north of Laos. The bus ride was pretty uneventful except the fact that the driver and few other people crowded in sitting on the steps were talking about me thinking I didn't understand. I just smiled and when a Thai man sitting next to me asked me a question and I responded in Thai they were all amazed! Overall it was a great trip!