Just reading the Sharing Experiences blog entry titled Beer. It's timely because earlier this week The New York Times published a long article on one particular beer on a mission, Beer Lao.
There's even one place where recently we've been able to find it here in rural northeast Georgia, of all places. It's great to see it popping up (albeit only occasionally, so far) hereabouts.
The article reports that, "In Hong Kong’s central district, it (Beer Lao) sells for 44 Hong Kong dollars, or about $6, a bottle — about the same price as Carlsberg, Stella Artois or Heineken.
Not so on our first encounter with Beer Lao. On an impossibly hot, dripping-humid afternoon, we sat in full sun at an insubstantial little formica table that comprised half the terrace at a no-name restaurant directly above the Mekong River in Luang Prabang.
We'd just arrived by boat from the northern tip of Thailand, it was so, so bloody hot and well, gee, we were mighty thirsty.
One U.S. dollar first produced two tall, icy bottles (one of which is pictured). A few moments later the barefoot, maybe pre-teen girl returned with a brilliant smile - and a handful of change.
Herewith I submit photographic evidence of our painstaking research into Beer Lao: It's my beautiful wife Mirja hard by the banks of the River Mekong in Luang Prabang, Laos in June, 2000.
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