Should have paid more attention in French class

So far our time in Laos has been very enjoyable.We are currently in the capital city Vientiane and are planing to head down to the Four Thousand Islands in the next few days. The money here comes in very large bills, we have taken out about four million kip which is a little more than four hundred dollars Canadian. It can be a little confusing at times to figure out how to pay for things and I have a couple of times given a bill with one less or more zero than is required. To add to the confusion there is some times a decimal used to separate the zeros so I have taken to counting the money before paying.



This is becoming easier day by day as I start to learn the approximate cost of things here. We see lots of tourists in most area that we have been traveling many of them French. Laos being a former French colony maintains a large section of French culture. There is French architecture in certain areas of the city's.



Cafes, pastry, and French restaurants are mixed throughout the main city streets. There are lots of cafes in Chiang Mai but Laos gives you the feeling that it's part of their culture here. Street carts are selling baguettes and once when we were lost a local asked if we spoke french to try and help us out. There is also a good number of really good Indian food restaurants in Laos and we have a few times gravitated towards these restaurants to have some very tasty curried vegetarian meals. So far on our trip this type of meal has been hard to find so we have especially enjoyed it. We have also realized how much we eat like this at home because it feels more like a home cooked meal.