Having suffered from an evening of nibbling at the hand of whatever creatures frequented the medieval beds in our downgraded hotel the day was to start with a new house hunt. Thankfully the 3 hours wandering on arrival in the dark was not necessary this time round and with my new appreciation for the layout of this small and relaxed city, I was able to find a replacement hotel within 30mins within the same price change and , cross fingers, devoid of bed bugs.
With the new hotel room key in hand I returned to the old digs (which also smelt of wet dog) picked up sleepy Alicia, and we headed down to the civilised bakery from the previous day for coffee and banana cake. Having checked in our bags we were just about to head off for some more exploring when we spotted some Mark and Lucy, some travelling buddies, at reception who had booked in to the room next to ours 10 minutes after us!. Now, I know this may not seem like a particularly interesting point in today's blog, but when you consider the circumstances of the meeting, it it actually deserves a mention.
We first met Mark and Lucy in a bar in Luang Prabang two weeks earlier and ended up getting very drunk and staying up till the wee hours of the morning with them. Although we got on very well, we were unable to make any plans to meet them again due to my illness and, at that stage neither of us new where we would be going next. We then randomly bumped in to them on our first evening in Ponsavan six-ish days later and three days after this in Vang Vieng were we went tubing with them. Neither of the last two times did we organise to meet them but ended up bumping in to them anyway. So you see, for them to check in to the room next to us, on the same day, in a Guest House with a 100 rooms and in a city with 1000 Guest Houses is rather a coincidence.
Once the shock of this chance encounter had subsided, we made plans Io meet them both for dinner and Alicia and I continued on our wander , which as mentioned in the previous blog means not really seeing very much. Needles to say we ended up at the strip your skin off chlorinated "Olympic" pool where we spent the day swimming whilst feeling your eyes bleed and sunbathing.
The late afternoon and evening heralded a day of True Blood season 2 watching (we had been carrying around the DVD in our rucksacks for two months waiting patiently for an opportunity to watch it having become well and truly addicted in Hong Kong) courtesy of the Guest Houses DVD player we rented.
4 episodes and a little sleep later it was time for dinner with Mark and Lucy. Following a long indecisive walk around town we ended up at the Indian restaurant from the following evening where gorged on yum yum spicy Indian food that would give any Brick Lane curry house a run for their money!!! The evening was concluded with a few bottles of crap/cheap red wine, music, good chat and cards back at the hotel room before retiring at an outlandish 3am!!!
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