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I guess you could say the market was the downtown of
Thakek or any Lao towns.  Around it was a gathering of
mostly Chinese shops selling everything from furniture
to food.  I even bought a pair of binocular there.  It
looked stylish (I could close it and carried it in my
pocket) but hardly comparable to the binocular used in
the military.  I used it mainly to watch the boat
race. Most of the time, I had to do without it
especially when I came to realize that it was just a
toy - looked good for a while but with no useful
function at all.  Next to the Chinese shops, a little
bit away from the market, were the Vietnamese shops. 
They sprung up almost everywhere in town.  They were
the tailor shops, the candies shops, the bicycle
repair shops, etc… and, of course, the Pho shops. 
When the Chinese/Vietnamese New Year came around, the
town was like their town. It made me realize that a
majority of the ethnic Lao lived in the countryside,
not the town at all.  Apart from the
Chinese/Vietnamese, there were a couple of Indian
shops mostly selling cloth.  At times, I saw an Indian
peddler pushing a cart selling a Roti.  Whenever he
was around, the Roti aroma permeated a good section of
the town.  I bought some of his Roti and would say
that was the only Indian food I ate and liked even up
to today.  

I remember that I bought a number of lottery tickets
from that area of the town.  It was a Thai lottery
ticket as the Lao didn't have one yet, or even if we
did, Thakek didn't have one.  To be frank, I was swept
by the idea of getting easy money like many other
short-sighted thinking people.  To my dismay, I didn't
win even a small amount from the lottery.  By the way,
the lottery that we played was Lek Song To (two
numbers) or Lek Sarm To (three numbers).  My mom
seemed to have a better luck with it.  She won
periodically, or maybe, we knew only when she won.  

(to be continued)

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