Home Sweet Home

Kitchen, Lounge and dining, study...i was unpacking at the time

In my spare time since arriving in Laos I have been setting up "home". I have taken up residence in a small 1 bedroom apartment, right in the center of town. I have moved into the apartment thinking that it will do for a short term living space, until i get to know my way around as it sits just behind Joma Cafe...ahhh...regular breakfast and coffee readily available only a minute away from my front door...now thats location location!!

Well my apartment is on the 3rd floor which also happens to be the top floor, came fully furnished, with a small balconey from which i can see across Vientiane...my neighbor in the next plot of land in front of where i live is apparently currently building a guest which also happens to be 3 stories...so soon i will be sharing my view with tourists!

Finding things to buy here is a little harder than in Thailand or Cambodia. I still have fond memories of my trip to buy a dinner set ... i was walking along the street and happened to come a across a shop that sold some really nice plates, bowls, teapots etc from china and vietnam. I found the design that i liked...my only problem was that now i had to find 6 of each dinner plate, bowl, and side plate...i had thought that surely in a shop filled and overflowing with plates that this would be a fairly easy taks to complete. I faced only two barriers...(1) Language (2) disorganization. I started the search for the plates in the chosen design...about 30 mins later, and only 5 plates, i decided to change designs and go with one that perhaps they would be able to find a complete set. Their idea seemed to be that i needed to have a bit of this and a bit of that...so another design change was in order...an hour and a half later i hit the jackpot...a matching dinner set of 6...oh the joy!! All i had to do successfully was walk them home without the bags breaking...small thing to do after re-arranging a shop and staking up their plates in color and design...