This morning, we ate breakfast in our hotel, the Family Hotel’s restaurant. They served us rice soup which tasted fine, but was an unfamiliar choice for breakfast. Afterwards, we went to the “Morning Market” which was comprised of winding alleys full of vendors selling numerous things including appliances, clothing, art, souveniours and food. Shiyu and Dr. Andrianoff spotted bottles of alcohol with snakes inside them, a sight that was less than comforting to Jessie. She purchased a set of key chains for 40000 kip. The price sounds expensive but converts to $5 in US money. Dr. Andrianoff bought rambutan fruit, a favorite of his, and had Jessie and Shiyu try some. Its appearance is exotic but its flavor is subtle. Shiyu noted that the market was similar to those in China. On our trip to and from the market we noticed that a lot of travel throughout the city is done by tuk tuk. We were consistently offered rides but chose to walk.
Following our return to the hotel from the market, we went across the street to another hotel’s restaurant to meet Maurice Babcock for lunch. Maurice coordinates the ELIC program in Laos and teaches as a professor. He has aided us in setting up our plans to teach in the primary schools next week. Maurice has lived in Laos for nearly 12 years so he was able to share some stories with us and communicate with the restaurant staff. This far, everywhere we have gone during our trip has been very accommodating to people who speak English. However, conversations have been kept fairly short and formal due to the language barrier. It seems that many of the people we’ve interacted with have been eager to speak with us in English but it was nice to have Maurice speak to them in their native language. The meal itself was good. We were amused because Maurice was the only one that opted for a western dish, a cheeseburger. The rest of us ordered different Asian foods. Jessie’s eye was caught by the tuna spaghetti but she chose to order a different noodle dish instead.
After lunch, we went to meet with Mr. Khamphath Pheltlasy, Director of International Cooperation Division within the Ministry of Education. Mr. Khamphath impressed us with his English and invited us to stay with his Grandmother the next time we visited. We discussed with him potential plans for our stay here and set up a trip to the primary schools on Friday. After seeing the two schools that he has selected for us to teach in, we will decide if we want to go into both or only one. We learned that the fifth graders are currently preparing for their final exams so it seems that we will be teaching either in the second or third grade. Our plan is to provide the classes with information about our lifestyle in New York and we hope that visiting the schools will allow us to figure out more specifically how our lessons should be structured. We’re also hopeful that we may get to sit in on a university class this week.
We ended the night by eating dinner at KuaLao Restaurant which served traditional dishes. The meal was served family style, meaning that each food is placed in the center of the table to be shared. It seemed that each dish had a similar flavoring but it was difficult to identify. Jessie explained it as being similar to black licorice because it is a taste that does not match any of the main four: sweet, spicy, salty and sour. The flavor is closest to sweet but the dishes themselves are certainly spicy. During dinner a band of older men played traditional music while a dance duet performed. The songs were entertaining and Shiyu recognized one tune as being Chinese. It was easy to see that the movement of hands was crucial to the dance style.
Before going to the restaurant we had taken a walk to the Mekhong River. There was a lot of construction being done near the waterfront so we had to walk through sand past bulldozers. Across the river was a view of Thailand. Originally, we had planned to cross the border between Thailand and Laos by train to get to Vientiane but complications within Bangkok prevented us.
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