After pinning down a hotel on Francois Ngen to stay for the night, I worked quickly to locate an ATM and then a rickshaw. If I accomplished only one thing today I wanted it to be the Beer Lao Brewery. The rickshaw driver knew what I was talking about right away and 20 minutes later I was approaching the guard post outside the factory. The guard ended up having to communicate with the rickshaw driver in order to determine my purpose, but after filling out a line on the sign in sheet I was handed my Beerlao visitor badge.
Inside at the front desk I asked about taking the tour and the receptionist broke the news to me that there was no tour today. She said that I could check the shop or the museum attached to the lobby or even order a beer, but that the area the tours take place in was under construction. So having already made the effort to come here I decided to sit down and order a Beer Lao Gold.
The employees then rushed around the lobby area to turn on the TV and the lights for the shop and the museum to make me feel a bit more welcome as a guest. Twice while walking through the lobby I was ambushed by swarms of mosquitoes which had taken home various areas, once in the museum and once as I attempted to look through Beerlao t-shirts in the shop. At one point I walked out the door on the west side of the lobby to see about getting a picture peeking around the back and was immediately overwhelmed by the smell of shit, its hard to say if the smell came from there beer making process or the nearby farms but it didn't help me to feel anymore at home here. After 25 minutes or so wandering around snapping photos I decided to purchase 2 shirts and another beer for the road before returning my visitor badger and hopping back into the rickshaw.
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| Store |
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| Cafe |
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| Museum |
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| Mosquitoes came out of this shit |
