So me and more sore butt did of course arrive eventually. My backpack, however, did not. Even now, three days after arrival, I wash my underwear and my two shirts every night. I was surprisingly chilled out about the incident (people help me out as well) until I remembered one thing. All my sports gear is in my main luggage – so no evening runs for now. NOOOOOOOOO! We are calling the airport every day, but don’t you think they would bring the backpack to me. I gotta pick it up myself. If it turns up, that is. So far, they have failed to track it… Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Khanthong, who’s one of my bosses here, picked me up and sorted out the visa with me. Easy-as. He then invited me for a coffee and I quickly started to like this guy. I am about two heads taller than he is, yet he has this air of authority. He speaks German, English, French, Lao and a bit of Thai which makes the communication easy enough. His boyish laugh couldn’t be more contagious and he already invited us to company bike trips. Most likely, I will do 50-200km tours at the weekends… Well, I guess I was planning on getting more into biking anyways. There are buses running in Vientiane, but there’s no timetable so you cannot rely on them at all and Tuktuks are too expensive for everyday use. Mopeds are an option but I’d rather buy myself some nice pushbike and resell it on departure.

Khanthong couldn’t have given a warmer welcome and I was already all smiles and anticipation when he dropped me off at the GLAD guest house (German-Lao Association for Development). Here, I met Ingrid.

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Writing the first entry of a new blog always feels special. Especially because this time, I am intending to try a couple of new things.

• I’d like to keep this blog for future adventures. 5years back, I started my first travel blog about Australia and I also blogged during my Erasmus semester in Norway, but so many highlights of other trips were never written down. I’d like to change that. So hopefully you’ll be able to read even more stories after Laos. Stay tuned!
• I will try to write in English more often. Often, not always, since there are just too many German words I appreciate. Like Fernweh. Or Ohrwurm. Or Megakrassbeeindruckendersternenhimmel (for real). Plus, despite my love for the English language, I’ll never be a native speaker.

Right now, I am sitting on the plane to Thailand. 7h to go and my butt is really sore and of course I have “scored” a middle seat. A middle seat in the middle row of a middle-sized Boeing to be even more precise. Bugger that. Chances are high that my cramped neck will soon beat the pain level of my sore ass. I doubt that I’ll be able to sleep much.

But hey, that is enough complaining for now. Let’s turn to all the upsides:

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