Ira and I are fine but we are now stuck in Laos. We couldn’t get any flights out of Thailand for weeks and the flights from Khon Kaen only go to Bangkok anyway which is obviously no good. So, we came back up to Vientiane by bus to try to get to Vietnam. The flights here are all FULL. The first flight we can get for sure is on Friday, 5 Dec, to Ha Noi. Then we can fly on Saturday to HCMC. So, we will definitely be back by Saturday. We are also going out to the airport everyday to try to get a stand-by seat. Maybe we will be lucky.
No telling what proportions this story will take on before it’s all told. The nicest thing is that the Vietnamese doctors and students are worried about us and fear that we may be suffering. We don’t have the heart to tell them that our only problem — other than being stuck — is deciding what to eat for dinner.