Sauna in the bush

After one of the best nights sleep in Laos, we woke up to a breezy and overcast Vientiane morning.  While that doesn't sound like the most appealing forecast, it was finally pleasant when we stepped out the door.  It was spectacular!

Because my fruit salad lady, from whom I buy 5,000K fruit salad every morning before work, doesn't work on the weekends (how dare she!), Kiki and I walked to Sabaidee cafe (the falafel stand) to pick up some fresh fruit en route to the pool.

We decided Saturday was the perfect day to check out the Vientiane swimming pool and let me tell you, I was skeptical.  Having promised Kiki to teach her how to swim in preparation for her triathlon, I got over my fear of public pools and jumped at the opportunity to get back in the water. 

In the end, the pool was fantastic.  There was enough chlorine to bleach my hair back to blonde, but that might be a good thing. We finished our visit to aquatic paradise with an ab workout that would have made the Wild Bunch proud.  It was Kiki's first time doing forced crunches, but I'm going to pretend that she loved it!

Walking back to the apartment, we decided to grab our bikes and visit the vegetable market instead of eating greasy street food and falling off the healthy saturday path.  The market was busy but we loaded up on tons of fresh vegetables and we lucked out when we found fresh pumpkin that was already cut up!  When we got back home, we made a huge salad, steamed the pumpkin and enjoyed a fabulous meal on the porch.  Sounds divine, right?

Our vegetable cornucopia!!!

Although we were cutting it a little close on time, we decided to follow our original plan and attend the free meditation session at Wat Sok Paluang.  It's advertised in all the guide books and since Fulvia (my couch surfer from a couple weeks ago) found it on her own, we didn't think we would have that much trouble.  We were wrong and when we finally found the meeting place, it was five minutes in and we had missed the instructions.  It was ok because we found a place to sit and enjoyed the 20 minutes of silent meditation, 20 minutes of walking meditation and another 20 minutes seated.  I have mixed feelings about walking meditation, especially among a group of falangs.  It just becomes an awkward traffic jam and its hard to keep a straight face when you're trying to walk and focus on the breath at the same time.

The session ended with a half hour Q&A about being a monk, meditation and Buddhism in general.  Kiki and I had also read that the Wat was host to an herbal sauna, so after the meditation session, we asked around and were finally pointed down this overgrown path that opened in a clearing with a raised tree house like massage room and sauna.  We were given cloth to wrap ourselves in and pointed in the direction of the sauna room. Opening the door was like walking into a zero visibility fog storm.  Trying not to trip into the hot coals, we found seats on a bench and eased our way into the heat. We ended up meeting a really nice couple on vacation and talking with them for a while before excusing ourselves to cool off with a cup of tea.  We went in the sauna again while waiting for a massage, but didn't last long.  With Brad waiting for dinner, we decided to skip out on massages, took a quick hose shower "in the bush" and biked to town.  

We picked Brad up from a skype session at an internet cafe and walked to Via Via, one of our favorite pizza places.  While Brad got the veggie lasagna, Kiki and I split a vegan artichoke pizza that we almost finished before Brad was served.  After dinner we called it an early night in preparation for Sunday morning...

Fruit salad Lao style: pineapple, jackfruit and lychee!

Stay tuned for the 3 am Sunday morning craziness!