Octie Appetie




What you see is not even one eight of them



Side Dish - Rice Noodle, fresh cut garlic, ginger, red onions and chillies and roasted peanuts



Yum Kor Moo Yang (grilled pork neck spicy salad)

Larb moo



Som Tum - Thai Style

I never can get enough of Som Tum, can't I??  How many dishes I had eaten, I'm still begging for more.  The balance of sweet, spicy, sour and saltiness is like a fireworks in my mouth.  With heaps of healthy ingredients like fresh paw paw and tomatoes, just another good reason to guilty-free enjoying lots of this delicious salad dish.



Pla Pao Gluea (Grilled salted - crust fish)

Everyone remind me to not eat the fish skin because it is too salty, but me as a seriously skin lover so I thought they were kidding me just to take that alluring crispy fish skin away from me.  So, I didn't care and simply dig into it, and my tounge was numb for a few while, losing my tastebud in a sudden.  It was extremely terribly salty, of course because this dish is named Pla Pao Gluea and they coated tons amount of sea salt on the outer fish then char-grill it.  Although by doing that, make the fish's skin is inedible but the meat inside was beautifully cook, juicy, nice flavour and not too salty at all.  Yeah I really should've listen to them at the first place !!

  

Thailand is where you can get super fresh seafood with a CHEAP price.  That's why I always have one or two seafood dishes at my meals while I was there.  These giant prawns were slightly char-grilled, still very juicy inside and accompanied with Thai-style seafood sauce.  For me this is the best way to eat seafood, while they still keeping the natural sweetness of prawns and enhanced with the Thai seafood dipping sauce.  Sweet, sour and spicy.  Yummmm...




What else you need after your heavy dinner and this steamy night, if not a magic cold and sweet treat.  We saw this cute egg-shaped ice cream.  So many different flavours, surely I have to get the Durian flavour cos they're my favourite.  They put this big sign of how to eat but don't worry about it cos the lady there will actually cut the plastic and pop the egg on the plastic container ready with the stick, so we can enjoy them easily.  They are just so delicious.

Real durian in this little egg.  Totally loved it !!!



Udonthani International Airport



Nok Air - the low cost airline with meal and baggage.  so goood.

Colourful Taxis in Thailand

We left Bangkok very early in the morning, because the journey ahead still long.  It's also possible to just fly directly to Vientiane, Laos from Bangkok.  But we prefer this way for more adventurous and of course more economical way.  Just a reminder for anyone who wanna do domestic flight from Bangkok and especially with the carry on baggage, the custom there is quite strict, unlike in Sydney where domestic they won't check for any liquid you bring in, but here in Bangkok they not allowed any liquid more than 100 ml, it's pretty much the same like when you flying overseas.

After arriving at Udonthani, we grabbed some breakfast at the local porridge and noodle shop before heading to Laos.





Jok Moo - Pork Congee

Chicken Kedgeree

Then we had a bit of walk in the UD Town, is like the centre of the city with heaps of trendy restaurants and shopping.  And at night they have this huge huge night bazaar in UD Town (I'll leave the review about this UD Town on the last blog of this Thailand's trip, so stay tuned guys).







Now, we continue our journey by driving from Udonthani to the egdes of border area between Thailand and Laos at Nong Khai province that took us about 45 mins until we reach the immigration at the Thai - Laos Friendship bridge.  We need to clear the custom here for visitor prior to getting into Lao DPR.


Thai custom and immigration





Welcome to Lao PDR



See, when I told you guys that Laos and Thai is only separated by majestic Mekong river so we only need to accross the Thai - Lao friendship bridge which links Nong Khai (Thailand) with Vientiane.  Voila !!  We arrive in another country.  Feeling so much like when you gonna cross the boarder to Mexico from the states.  It's that easy.



Steering wheel is on the left hand side

The interesting thing I've noticed is that in Thailand, the car uses right hand steering wheels which practically same like in Australia whereas in Laos is the opposite.  But most of Laotian or Thais who live near by the border area know how to flick their head around easily.  This is because they are so used to coming in and out between this 2 country.  For instance, my friend brought her Laos' car accross Thai border just to pick us up from Udonthani, Thailand and she drove back with the same car back to Laos.  I mean she can just swift straight away without getting any confusion on the road.  Although, she done this many times already, still very smart!!!