The send off from home was emotional. Far too much alcohol drunk, far too many people who were wrenching to say goodbye to. I had a wonderful last evening with my family – a combination of laughter, alcohol and confessions.

The airport was just a continual queue – a long queue that I’d assumed was for check in but was actually the queue to allow you to join the check in queue. Then the queue for security which went the length of the building and down the stairs. People were only allowed one bag each which was throwing women who had assumed that they would be able to take a piece of hand luggage as well as their handbags – those that had it wrong had to go back down to check in and rejoin all the queues. The flights were long but uneventful – uneventful being how I most like my flights!

Bangkok airport is new – and impressive – though I could probably cope with slightly fewer long live the King signs. Then on to Vientiane.

What an amazing place.

I’ve had just a couple of days here so far but already met so many incredible people.

The fabulous woman who had arranged my hotel came over to fetch me. We headed over to a place for street kids. It gives them an education, food, safety and takes away the need to beg. Mostly the kids were young as the older ones were mainly at school. They were all clean and smart and very cuddly. As we talked to one of the people working there children ran around us. We walked out passing the children as they were having lessons and I found my fingers being grasped tightly by many little fingers who didn’t want to let go.

They are opening a restaurant in around three weeks which has been set up to give the older kids a trade. They have been taught to cook, wait, and generally run the restaurant, but are being given friends to practice on until the opening day. It was a wonderful place – the food was fabulous and the staff incredibly attentive. They are keeping it all MSG free too. The hot pineapple with coconut ice cream and chilli sweet, quite stunning.

When I took my CV into an English school that had been recommended, I realised that they share a building with Oxfam, so I popped in to see what I could do to help. We’ve swapped email addresses and I’ll see what happens. The school seemed a good one, but they are on holiday now till Monday for the That Luang festival. They were hopeful that they would be able to get me some work.

Vientiane is very different from what I had expected. The streets are wider and the main ones well maintained. There are many more cars than I expected and far fewer bicycles – most people seem to get around by motorbike. And, although I should have realised from the history as a French colony, I hadn’t expected people to drive on the ‘wrong side’! My rudimentary Thai is proving invaluable – rusty and minimalistic as it is. Few of the people I’ve met speak anything more than a couple of words of English.

The main exception to this has been the monks I met at the festival. There is a festival here for the next week. It is based around the temple at That Luang. Everything is beautifully lit and stalls and fairground rides abound. Music screams out from every stall as people throw darts at balloons and win drinks as prizes, kids throw themselves down inflated bouncy castles cum slides and stalls sell amazing varieties of food and trinkets. My usual response at the clothes stalls failed me – I can normally instantly deflect their entreaties to buy by pointing out that their clothes won’t fit me, but when I tried this, the guy brought out a pile of around twenty tee shirts, all big enough for me. So I’ll actually be able to buy clothes here if I want.

Unsurprisingly there were many monks at the festival. They come from all around Laos for the festival. I started talking to some of them as they played around in front of my camera. They are keen to improve their English and a large group joined me. They were young – late teens in the main, and weren’t taking their roles as seriously as most monks I’ve met in the past. One of them started smoking, but then admitted that if the Abbott saw him he’d be in serious trouble. He didn’t hide his smoking at all though. Another ate an ice cream. I was stunned by this as they are not supposed to eat after midday. Apparently ice cream is fine though as it’s almost just water! Quite. I’m going with this in future – I like the reasoning! If a woman passes anything to a monk, it normally has to be given to a man to hand to him as he mustn’t come too close to a woman. They were fairly lax though, taking my camera straight from me and handing things straight to me. They brought me water and we talked for hours. They offered that I could stay at the temple if I wanted and we’ve agreed that I will come over often to see them. They get to practice their English with me and they will help me to learn Laos. When I went back, the following day we talked about where they go to collect alms in the morning. They told me what they most like to get in their alms bowls. They were very exact about it. They like rice and coconut cooked in bamboo. I’m fairly sure that they aren’t supposed to hint like this.

The food so far has been incredible. Pork noodle soup turned into something else. A huge bowl of broth with noodles, pork meat and scratchings, tomato and coriander was served with bowls of beansprouts, basil, mint green beans and lettuce, together with fish sauces, chillies, sugar, vinegar dressings and msg – gave that one a miss. Absolutely wonderful. Chinese dumplings filled with an explosion of flavours. Apple pieces dunked in strings of sugar syrup and smothered with sesame seeds. Served with a bowl of ice water to drop the nuggets into, cooling them and setting the toffee.

It feels like a great way to have been introduced to a country.