Savannahket

We spent our time in Savannahket with Tom, Took and their 4 boys, who have grown so much since we last saw them. We visited their church and went to Christmas parties in the evenings. It was neat to see how they celebrate Christmas and hear them sing Christmas carols in Lao. The Lao people are very warm, caring and friendly. We watched tom and took's boys practice a skit showing how Christianity first came to Laos that they were going to perform on Christmas day. One of the parties ended the evening with everyone taking turns performing songs on the stage. They tried to get us to go up but I wasn't too keen. They also had a fire and cooked cow skin. We declined a sample.

On our last day in Savannakhet, Tom gave us a tour on scooters. Anna has been asking me to take her on a motorcycle ride and she finally got her wish! We visited the eye hospital Took works at. They have a laboratory for examinations, and they actually make the glasses right there. There's also a surgery, and an area especially for helping the blind.

We went outside the town to the rice fields and watched as workers toiled to plant a second crop of rice for the season. It was really neat to see how rice is grown. Further out of town we visited little huts on the lake, built out over the  water, where people go to relax, have a cup of tea and play card games.

After saying our good-byes, we left Savannahket by bus. The trip was 5 hours, scheduled to leave at 5:30pm. However, it didn't leave for 45 minutes, and when it did, it went through the town picking up more people along the way. That added half hour to our trip. With the delayed departure and pickup, we didn't get into Pakse until 11:10pm. It was an interesting way to spend Christmas eve--on a bumpy old stinky bus. We were lucky to get the back of the bus so we could stretch out and doze a bit. We were exhausted by the time we finally arrived, 1.5 hours late. We got a tuk tuk to our guesthouse only to find it was closed for the night.
Ironically, this Christmas eve, I maybe got a taste of how Joseph of Bethlehem felt,  who had to travel to his home town in Judea. His wife was pregnant (mine is not, yet!). He arrived in town, likely late, and there were no rooms left.

Thankfully we didn't need to spend the night in a barn, as there was an available and open hotel across the street. It cost more, but that was fine - we had a bed to sleep in.