Did you drive from Bangkok to VTE?

I originally left the US and landed in Bangkok, then took Lao Airlines to Vientiane where I stayed for about 3 weeks. During my stay in Laos, I went to Xieng Kwong for a few days and then onto Luang Prabang for another few days and finally back to Vientiane again. I have yet to go down south, that will be my next trip, Pakse and Savannakhet and wherever else I can wander to. I went to my birth place in Udon afterwards by crossing by car from Nong Kai and taking a taxi to Udon. After exploring Udon for a few days, I flew air asia to Phuket (2 hr flight) and spent a week there, stayed in Patong Beach. Had the time of my life there. Afterwards, I flew air asia again to Bangkok (1.5 hr flight) and arrived just before the songkran started. I must say, air asia is very convenient to book last minute flights through their website but I hate having to always input all my passport details everytime, especially when you have multiple people, wish you could just save the info. Anyways, the flights are the cheapest of any airline around. Udon to Phuket $95, Puhket to Bangkok $99 one ways. It was even cheaper to go from Bangkok to Udon with air asia $50 versus Lao Airlines going from Bangkok to Vientiane Wattay airport of an astonishing $140 for a one way and $260 return. I know it saves time and convenience from having to travel from Udon to Vientiane but I only spent around 600 baht ($20 US) to get from Nong Kai to Udon by taxi. Anyways, I'm rambling now and being off topic.

Back to the food, man oh man did I ever eat while I was over there. I don't even know where to begin, didn't even have time to take pics of everything I ate but here is a taste to make your mouths water...
I will start with this pic from the infamous restaurant Kop Jai Der across from Joma Cafe. Had to go eat there to see if it lives up to the hype and it was okay. It seemed like the dirtier the place was, the better tasting it was so Kop Jai Der was too clean of a place since it was geared towards foreigners. Maybe the food didn't taste as great due to it being over priced, haha...

Look good. But 4300 baht kind of pricy for lobsters.

Too sinful !

That's funny 

Admin Saovaluck wrote on 26^th Apr, 2012 at 3:36pm:

Gai something ?

Everytime I ate, there was always food left on the table. This is normal for me in US but I think over there, they kind of think you are wasting food if you don't clean the plates. I sat next to some chinese folks and they ate everything they could, even the wiskers on the lobster. They looked at us like we were crazy to order so much food and not even finish half of it. I was going to ask them if they wanted to finish our leftovers but that would have been rude of me, haha. I noticed also when we went to eat with some real Lao people in Vientiane that they would say things in a very polite way such as when they wanted to take the leftover food home from a restaurant. They would say can you wrap this up for me to take home for my dog, even though they didn't have any pets. Actually, the story goes like this; a man that frequents a restaurant would ask the waitress to place the leftover food in a take out container so he could take it home for his dog. Well one day when his wife came to eat with him, the waitress asked him if he wanted to take the leftovers back to his dog that day and his wife asked her husband, we don't have a dog? So basically he was bringing the food home to his wife but instead of saying it directly, Lao people like to say things in a more elegant way, so I was told. There are a lot of phrases like this that play on words cause Lao people don't really want to be too direct, it is impolite. I however, don't ever take food home in a doggy bag at a restaurant.