Arrived in Laos

Vieng greeted me with the paperwork ready to get my visa when I arrived at the airport in Vientiane. While I waited for her to process through the line (yeah, she’s awesome), I started chatting with another American who had come in on my flight from Bangkok. Turns out he’s an MD/MPH student here for 3.5 months working on pan flu stuff for WHO. Our paths will surely cross; the Laos API community is tiny!! So we exchanged emails; got new friends already before even crossing the border! Niiiice.

The driver took us to the U.S. Embassy to pick up my boss, Andy, who is absolutely terrific. He’s always going 100 mph with his words, thoughts, schedules, phone calls. Immediately in the car, he was setting expectations for my three months, what we could hope to accomplish, and what I could learn. His emphasis is to provide me the best learning experience possible -- learning how to get things done in the “Lao reality.” He’s going to be an awesome mentor.

We took a quick spin along the Mekong to see the restaurants, bars, and sandbags (remaining from the flood back in August) lining the riverbank before checking in to my apartment. And then Vieng brought me to PVO, a Vietnamese food place near the Mekong, for lunch. The noodle salad was yummy, but only after I’d started eating did I realize that I might be better off avoiding the raw stuff. Sure enough my stomach was rumbling later on, but ginger tea helped. I’m also told that drinking a can of Coke (not Pepsi) with questionable foods is good to kill any nasties…

I was doing pretty good for the day till that warm shower around 5pm put me to sleep on the dining table. But I had a beer obligation with Monica, and she picked me up on her motorbike (thank goodness I brought a helmet from the U.S. after all) to go to Sticky Fingers, a surprising expat haven close to the Mekong. I tried my first BeerLao (a nice light beer) with ice, and Monica and coworker introduced me to the Tom Yum Martini. We had a good time chatting, with me interjecting lots of yawns with accurate timing.

That’s it for me. It’s 10pm, and I’m zonked. Much more to come; over and out.