So the last two days I made a run to Laos to change my Visa from the one that allowed me to study to the one that will allow me to teach. Everything went smoothly; God be thanked.
Linguistic notes: Spoken Thai and Lao are pretty related. Listening to kids count, and doing prices around town, the only number that I found that was different was the number twenty. Everyone could understand my Thai (I think partly thanks to the large amount of Thai radio and TV in the country). I could generally understand those who spoke to me, but that may have been because they were using Thai to answer my Thai.
Written Thai and Lao are pretty related. Some of the letters are shaped differently, and there were some letters I couldn’t identify. Being alert to the context of writing, I could often decipher it. For example, I was able to read “european breakfast” on the menu of an international restaurant.
I enjoyed my time there. Everything felt pretty relaxed. I also felt like I’d stepped back in time.
There was also a total lack of the store chains that are so prevalent in Thailand (i.e. KFC, 7 eleven). (They’re communists).
The weather was quite nice (as long as you could get out of the sun from 10-2:00)
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