Last days in Laos
Trip Start
Sep 19, 2002
1
85
129
Trip End
Sep 22, 2003
Vientiane,
Lao Peoples Dem Rep
Sunday, May 4, 2003
3rd May (Are we really that far behind again??!) - Only interesting thing today (as we were in rafting recovery) was that while eating our lunch in a roadside cafe we were pulled on the sleeve by a young beggar. Rather than demanding money he pointd to our plates and his mouth and it was really hard to turn away and ignore him but this is what we have been advised to do. I then felt guilty when I left part of my bread although Pip didn't feel guilty about polishing off his entire gargantuan sandwich. Talking of food (my favourite subject) we tried the local speciality of laap which is minced meat in a salad and a Laos goulash but neither were very nice. We'll stick to the French while we are here!
4th May - Took a jumbo to the Buddha Park which is a collection of huge stone carvings of various deities from the various religions. Apparently it is very "Laos" as they really like this sort of thing but it was a bit disappointing when we got there. It took 40 mins and cost us $6 to go there and back and we were done in about half an hour. The most exciting part was driving past the beerlao factory where we cheered loudly and made our driver laugh. We also saw the Thai-Laos friendnship bridge and could Thailand across the river for most of the journey.
In the evening we went down to our special seat at the riverside bar for our last beerlao - sob sob. That was followed by a rather expensive but very welcome roast lamb with mint sauce and gravy. Not up to Pip's mum's standards but fantastic to have almost roast potatoes again.
5th May - After packing up our stuff again (yuk) we went to our fave bakery for lunch and then headed to the national museum. The first part was really well done - all about the recent archealogical digs and about the Plain of Jars which we couldn't travel to see. These are various sized jars, squillions of years old that they believe are funeral earns, scattered about the fields in an area which was heavily bombed during the American war. Which brings us onto the next part of the museum. This is slightly older and not translated by native English speakers so the labelling (what little was in English) was quite 'interesting'. You may be thinking, what American war in Laos. This is because it was the Secret War. When things started to get out of hand in Vietnam and loads of the VC were using the mountains along the Ho Chi Minh trail bordering Laos, they started trying to bomb them inside Laos. However, both sides had agreed not to bomb Laos so the Americans wore civvy clothing and flew civvy airlines - Air America as it was known. They bombed Laos so much that it will take still many years to clear the ordnance and landmines etc and people are killed and injured every year by stuff dropped by both sides. You can imagine therefore the labelling on some of the pictures. "American imperialists and their puppets" was a favourite line and there is a picture of a small roadgang with the caption "barborous slavery by the French" (who started it all in the first place). It's mostly photos but they do have a collection of things belonging to Kaysone Phomvihane who was a great leader and escaped from the American prison. Everything he had on him at the time is there inclusing socks, rice steamer and bamboo salt and chilli sauce containers! Best of all is the chest expander he used when devising his next plan of action. Perhaps that is where Pip and I have been going wrong with our decision makig process!
To be continued........
