Week 11- Laos (Vientiane) Day 1

Today we had a delightful lay in before heading down to the common area for breakfast. We were so happy to see they did poached eggs on their menu, and they were running!! It's the little things that please us two girls! We had been given a map of the area so decided to walk to the COPE centre- the medical rehabilitation centre for people with disabilities. The Lao government have been providing services since 1963. The centre provides prosthetics, training and related rehabilitation. It also supports the costs for services for people who cannot afford it.

Lao is the most heavily bombed country in the world in history. More than 50,000 people have been killed or injured due to the UXO incidents between 1963 and 2011.

We spent some time slowly walking around reading the signs and listening to the audios. It was truly fascinating yet heartbreaking to hear about it. We watched a video with a husband and wife discussing loosing their son to a bomb. Many children would find and play with the bombs thinking it was a ball and then they would sadly explode. The mother explained that they hired a car to take their son to the hospital, however, the hospital had no supplies of blood or oxygen. They went to a hospital further out which yet again had no resources meaningthey had no choice but to take their son home and allow him to pass away in his own environment. It's awful to think he was likely to survive if the hospitals had the supply of oxygen and blood. We also heard a lady speak who was the first female doctor in Lao. She went on to explain she saved as many lives as possible, however, the hospital only had 5 hours of electricity a day and they had only recently got running water, therefore, her job was very difficult.

It was amazing to read through the newspaper articles and see all of the assistive equipment (you can imagine how much I loved it as an OT). They also spoke about occupational therapy, although, it was pretty much unknown in Lao. They believe it is an important component for rehabilitation so they have began to develop their skills and knowledge. It was really interesting seeing all the different type of prosthetics from over the years some were basically a wooden pole, it amazing to think how they got by. We also saw pictures of amputee victims who continued to work, some shifting wood into their wheelchairs to transport it.. Amazing what they achieved.

Gemma had found a good cafe on trip advisor, it was number one for the area so we decided to go there for some lunch. It was a bit of a mission but we eventually found it tucked down a tiny little road. The restaurant was literally set up in someone's front room and outside their house but the food was INCREDIBLE and we had homemade lemonade.. It was also really cheap. Good find from Gemma! We then had the massive task of walking back to the hostel.. It was the completely opposite side of the town. It had taken us about 35 minutes to walk to the COPE centre. It was boiling hot and we thought we were never going to get back, we even popped into 7/11 purely to cool down under their air con.

We decided to have a chilled afternoon so set up camp in common area and watched frozen! This made us both so happy especially with a cuppa tea! I managed to FaceTime my baby cousins while my mum was up in Kidderminster which was really sweet! In the evening we planned to go to the market, however, there was a giant thunderstorm!! It absolutely poured down, we didn't really want to eat at the hostel so decided to run to one of the local restaurants. We got absolutely drenched but ended up in a lovely French restaurant. We both ended up eating a set course so we were absolutely stuffed and had to roll back!