Welcome to Laos

Sabidee from Laos! We arrived safe and sound on Wednesday and are now adjusting to a new place and culture. Our luggage, unfortunately, arrived two days later. Culture shock began as soon as we boarded Thai airways in Los Angeles where we, even in economy class, were treated like kings. In comparison to US airlines where we were only served drinks on our 5 hour cross country flight, we were given a full lunch on our hour long flight into Vientiane, Laos.

Vientiane has quite a small town feeling to it even though it is the capital. The traffic is mostly motorcycles and scooters which can be quite hectic especially since the roads are very narrow. The MCC office and Guest house are on a one lane paved road but many of the surrounding streets are gravel. The weather brings rain almost every afternoon and evening, breaking the heat until morning. Thankfully it is not quite as hot as we thought being in the 80’s-90’s. Even in these three days we have seen and done much. We have visited two temples, been to a market twice, ate at various small street-side food vendors and participated in two Lao ceremonies. We are currently staying in the MCC guest house right behind the office for the time being, though we are looking forward to traveling to Vietnam for a brief area conference and moving in with a local Laotian family soon after.