I should've paid heed to the hiccups.
When my waitress broke the news that Mekong Riverside was out of banana salad, I retreated to an old standby; I may also have told her something foolish, like "make it spicy." My papaya salad (8,000 kip) was sour and hot — so hot that I began hiccuping after one mouthful, so hot that I didn't stop hiccuping through two sodas and the entire course of an unremarkable duck larb (35,000 kip). I finished the larb, but I left some papaya behind. That's rare: As many of my friends will tell you, after I clean my plate, theirs are often next, if they dally.
The hiccups passed 15 minutes or so later, as I surveyed (eyes only) the outdoor grilled-food vendors along the river. Later that evening, I had a snack or two in the center of town, so I can't pin the events that followed on the papaya (at least not with certainty), but in six weeks of food hunting in Southeast Asia, that was my only out-and-out "bad night." I didn't mind it as much for its own sake as for how it threw me off-rhythm; though I was back on the prowl the next day, I had little stomach for anything but rehydration.
Mekong Riverside Restaurant
Th. Fa Ngum, Vientiane, Laos
(From a November 2006 visit)
