Alice and I have made it to Laos! It took about 13 hours total: 10 on a really nice, double-decker VIP bus, and 3 getting from the bus station to and through the border into Vientiane. The bus we were on for 10 hours was actually very nice. The seats had tons of leg room and reclined almost flat. It also helped that the trip was overnight, so I was able to sleep most of the time. Getting through the border was really easy, but took a little longer than normal because all the customs officials had a 20 minute breakfast break right after we arrived. Other than that, it went perfectly smooth. Sorry, there are no fun stories!
We traveled here with a group of 6 Mennonite women, 5 of which are only here until Saturday. They came to help out with a missionary conference in Chiang Mai last week, and this week they will be helping out at ARDA. Angela is the only one who will be staying. She works for the ARDA Skills Centre as a teacher. We also met Jeremy, Charlene, and their daughter, Akira. They all work at ARDA as well, and Jeremy will be our supervisor.
Vientiane is located immediately on the border with Thailand, with the Mekong River as the only separator. For most of the drive to where we are staying, we could see across to Thailand and we are actually living about 2 blocks from the river. It is kind of strange because the Thai side is very luscious and green, but the Lao side is dry and brown; even the park we drove by was mostly dirt and a few trees.
The hotel we are staying in us very nice. There is even a TV and a fridge! We have a corner room, so we also have the added benefit of a window. The hotel is within walking distance of the place we are working. It is supposed to take about 10 minutes, but we haven’t actually walked it yet. ARDA is planning to buy 2 bikes for us to use for the month, so it really isn’t that far at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment