6/22/13
Vientiane-> Vang Vieng
Dinner last night was delish! We went to a restaurant that had western and traditional Lao food. I ordered a noodle dish with spicy peppers, onions and bacon. I also ordered an icy blended orange drink that was so good! My meal cost me a total of $4 including tip! I could really get used to the prices here! Everyone else ordered dessert but I was too full (these European girls can eat!!! They each had ice cream with at least 2 scoops!)
We then walked back to our hotel which was close. It was so nice not to hear horns honking or getting nearly run over by a motorbike. My roommate for the night was Laura from England. She is 20 years old and is going to school in the fall to be a speech therapist.
We chatted for a while and I then took a shower which was basically a faucet on the wall of the bathroom that sprayed down onto the tile floor. (Every time i travel, I am so appreciative of the luxuries I have at home!) We then went to bed around 11:30.
This morning we got up at 7:30 and brought our luggage down with us to breakfast. There were no elevators so getting my bag downstairs was a "fun" challenge. Breakfast was very basic. I had fried eggs and bread but some other options included fried rice, steamed vegetables, some kind of bean dish and lychee fruit.
At 8:30 our group headed out in the rain to pick up our transportation for the day- tuk tuks! They are basically motorbikes with covered benches attached to the back. There were 6 of us in each one. Our first stop was That
Luang. It is considered the symbol of Laos. You can walk around it and see all the altars set up to honor Buddha. There is also a temple with very ornate architecture and bright colors. We then took our tuk tuk to another temple that has over 6,000 Buddhas. I stopped counting after 10.
Following the temple we went to the COPE center which is a place that helps to fit people in Laos with prosthetic limbs. Many of the people who are fitted have lost limbs from finding bombs or "bombies" that explode. These were dropped during the Vietnam war by the US all over Laos. According to the center, Laos was the most bombed country in the world after the Vietnam war. There were also no rules about where the US had to drop their bombs so there were littered all over the country, including mainly in small farming villages. According to Richard Nixon, there were never any bombs dropped at all. Forty years later, some of the bombs are still active and if they are not removed properly by a trained team they explode and have, to date, killed or injured over 12,000 Lao people. I also learned that there is a black market for scrap metal from the bombs so many people are dying trying to dismantle the bombs themselves. Many children have also been killed because they try to earn money for their families by finding and selling the metal, too. I found this center very enlightening and I plan to research more about it when I get home.
After the center we headed to lunch. Most of the group went to the Joma bakery (for some, it was their third or fourth time eating there.) Four of us headed to the Kop Chai restaurant (Kop chai means thank you in Lao.) I had a beef noodle dish that I added some hot Thai chili sauce to (my dad would like it!) and a fresh pineapple juice. It only cost me $5! Again, it was a great meal.
We got a bit lost heading back to the hotel but we made it about 10 mins. after we should have. The rest of the group was already on the bus with our stuff loaded up! Because we aren't on a particular time schedule today it wasn't really a big deal. We then set off north toward Vang Vieng.
We have a local guide traveling with us through Lao. His name is Kao and he is from Luang Prabang. He seems to have a pretty good sense of humor.
Until next time!