Hi Gram,

Happy New Year(ish)!! The past few days have been fun, but nothing to write home about. I’ve done my usual morning walks, came back and had a lovely breakfast, wandered around town a little, had some lunch at a different restaurant each day (Tammak Lao was our favorite), lounged around the hotel, did a little planning for our next steps. Not every day can be exciting, although I’ve had so many exciting days in the past few months that it actually feels weird not to have pages and pages of amazing stories. We moved hotels for a day because there was “no room at the inn” as they say, but our hosts found us a room at the place next door which was almost as lovely. We moved back the next day, partly out of loyalty and partly because the room was a little bigger. 

One night we walked through the night market so Nattiya could do a little shopping for presents. She’s going to see her family in a few days when we’re back in Thailand, so t-shirts were in order. The idea of a night market is common in SE Asia, and most towns have at least one. In Luang Prabang, a section of the main road through old town, where we were staying, is shut down from car traffic so vendors can set up tents and sell their wares. I’ve seen this same dance done in a few towns now and it’s still amazing each time. We’ll walk down a road in the daytime, with cars parked on either side, cars, scooters, and bikes zipping in either direction, and pedestrians galore. Come back an hour or two later and none of the parked cars are there, the road is blocked from traffic, and tents line both sides of the road, shirts or carvings or paintings or jewelry or any number of wares laid out under each tent or hanging from makeshift racks with the vendor in the middle of it all ready to sell you whatever they have and you need. They set all of this up and tear it all down a few hours later every night of the week. 

Now, I’m going to admit that I did something I’m not proud of. Life isn’t all sunshine and roses, and I am not without my faults or embarrassing stories. In this case, we had just picked out a pile of shirts. I was trying to pay the woman, with a few obstacles in our way. First, she spoke Lao, and I spoke English. Second, her prices were in Lao Kip. I didn’t have enough Kip, but I had some Thai Baht, which is also accepted. So she would quote me a number in Kip, then I would ask how much in some Kip and the rest in Baht. She would quote me back a number in just Kip or just Baht. Nattiya would interject, speaking in Thai (Thai and Lao have a large overlap), trying to be helpful but just adding to the confusion.

So the vendor and I couldn’t understand each other at all, I could barely understand Nattiya, and Nattiya and the vendor would misunderstand each other from time to time. In all the confusion, Nattiya was telling me a price that didn’t seem right, the vendor was asking me for ten more baht than I’d handed her, and I was being stubborn and insisting that I had handed her the right amount. Finally, the vendor waved us off and said something along the lines of “okay, that’s fine, just go.” We walked away, none of us happy at the exchange which is not how I like interactions to go. I felt even worse when I’d had a few minutes to recover my senses and realize that I had been arguing with this woman over the equivalent of $0.30 USD. I suggested we go back and find the vendor so I could give her 100 baht as an apology and compensation, but the moment had passed and Nattiya assured me that it wasn’t worth it. We spent the rest of that evening a little on edge, just needing some time to pass to dull the aggravation and embarrassment. After stopping at a cafe for some drinks and a pineapple tart that I didn’t need, we headed back to the room, brushed our teeth, and watched a little YouTube before falling asleep.