June
2, Saturday
Traveling by private bus today from Vang Vieng to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. It is raining again this morning (we were lucky yesterday). We are told that the drive is only about 4 hours, depending on the road conditions and the traffic when we get nearer to the city. Strangely, the road conditions were better in the north around Luang Prabang than they are here. Sali (our male local guide) tells us that their prime minister stepped down before his term was over and the newly elected prime minister immediately discontinued the “tolls” on the roads, since most of the money never made it back to government coffers. There is work being done along the way to widen the road, but many of the bridges can only accommodate one transport truck or bus at a time. We almost got schmucked at one point; we had turned a curve and our driver braked suddenly because of a single lane bridge with a big oil tanker on it, coming in our direction. A local bus behind us narrowly missed hitting us by crossing the oncoming lane and ending up in the field on the other side of the road. The tanker driver had seen this and also braked, otherwise the tanker would have hit the other bus just as it was crossing the road beside us. Thank you God, Buddha, Yvette J, and my other guardian angels. This one would have been very bad.
Some stores we pass along the way, through the small towns
The rice paddies are all tiered in order to provide pooling and draining as required.
The towns are poor, with woven matts for walls
Some people have been able to purchase large bricks to build their homes
The dirt road seems to go on forever. It has recently been graded however and it looks like it has been widened.
Here is a good view of one of the tilling machines. I've seen some where the man is simply sitting on a wooden wagon, while the tiller is providing the motorized power to move both.
We make a brief stop along the way to stretch our legs. It is filled with people selling all sorts of dried fish
Some of the houses look very nice. There is always a blend of poor, old and new in each village
AH HA ! Here is a picture of the tiller, with wheels, pulling a wagon. Too bad about the rain drops on the windshield.
The roads are similar to yesterdays, winding along on mostly flat terrain
There are road side stalls all along the way
Coming in to a small village
Here's another view of a tiller connected to a wagon. Obviously a popular mode of transportation in these farm areas. Double duty !
A railway bridge across a river.
It is pouring rain, but the rice farmers are still working in their fields.
We arrive in Vientiane, where it is obvious that some people are very well off
Not sure if this will be an apartment building or a hotel, but it is very brightly coloured.
As we drove in, it is obvious that the capital is a prosperous area. People can afford to purchase new cars
new motorcycles or mopeds.
There was even "used" car lot selling smashed up cars ! I wasn't quick enough to get a picture, but it would have been priceless!
Tuk-tuks in Vientiane
The traffic near Vientiane wasn’t too bad and we got to the “Family Hotel” at noon. Just enough time to shower and change clothes before going out for lunch.
My room at the Family Hotel. Today Melissa & Lindsey are sharing a room and I'm on my own. In case I haven't mentioned it yet, since we are 3 solo female travellers (Violet paid the single supplement to have a private room throughout the trip) we are rotating so that each one of us gets to enjoy some privacy on a regular basis.
And look at how nice the shower area is ! I LOVE IT !
The view from my room
Looking down at the Hotel lobby from the 3rd floor (Ground floor, 1rst, 2nd, 3rd). No problems though since this hotel had an elevator.
The hotel is located on “rue Pangkham, a short walk to “rue Setthathirath" where many restaurants are located. Most of us ended up at another Joma Bakery Café to eat a nice fresh salad. (Same bakery chain as in Luang Prabang, and they wash all their veggies and fruits with bottled water.) I was also able to find an Internet office to print out my Vietnam Visa Approval letter, which I will need when we reach Hanoi. No empty pages left in my passport however ! ! ! Not sure what they will do with that. Canadian Government travel notice did not indicate in the visa requirements that full pages were needed for many countries. Hopefully Cambodia is just a regular stamp, I still have room for a few of those.
http://www.savannanet.com/uslegacy.htm More interesting information on what the US has done … and NOT DONE… to “assist” Laos since then. Quite an eye opener.
Notice that the sign is made up of prosthesis: arms, legs, feet.
These statues are made of bomb cassings and other bomb fragments
These are "bombies" or cluster bombs. They have been hung up to demonstrate how it looks like when they drop from the skies.
This is one bombie that thas been opened up so we can see the outer and inner shells, as well as the pellets within.
A poster, to teach children about what to do if they find a bombie. NOT TO TOUCH. Go tell and adult so that the location can be identified and the bombie safely removed.
Prosthesis of all kinds, old and new, wooden, plastic or metal
Herkam Palace, or Presidential Palace
That Dam: “Known as the ‘Black Stupa', many locals believe this mythological structure was once inhabited by a seven-headed dragon (now dormant) that stood to protect the city from the threat of the Siamese. Though it's never been dated, it's estimated to have been constructed in the 15th century.”
It was only around 8 pm when Violet and I left the group on the waterfront and headed back to the hotel. Neither of us are really interested in the “bar scene” thing and we were both looking forward to resting.
Traveling by private bus today from Vang Vieng to Vientiane, the capital of Laos. It is raining again this morning (we were lucky yesterday). We are told that the drive is only about 4 hours, depending on the road conditions and the traffic when we get nearer to the city. Strangely, the road conditions were better in the north around Luang Prabang than they are here. Sali (our male local guide) tells us that their prime minister stepped down before his term was over and the newly elected prime minister immediately discontinued the “tolls” on the roads, since most of the money never made it back to government coffers. There is work being done along the way to widen the road, but many of the bridges can only accommodate one transport truck or bus at a time. We almost got schmucked at one point; we had turned a curve and our driver braked suddenly because of a single lane bridge with a big oil tanker on it, coming in our direction. A local bus behind us narrowly missed hitting us by crossing the oncoming lane and ending up in the field on the other side of the road. The tanker driver had seen this and also braked, otherwise the tanker would have hit the other bus just as it was crossing the road beside us. Thank you God, Buddha, Yvette J, and my other guardian angels. This one would have been very bad.
Some stores we pass along the way, through the small towns
The rice paddies are all tiered in order to provide pooling and draining as required.
The towns are poor, with woven matts for walls
Some people have been able to purchase large bricks to build their homes
The dirt road seems to go on forever. It has recently been graded however and it looks like it has been widened.
Here is a good view of one of the tilling machines. I've seen some where the man is simply sitting on a wooden wagon, while the tiller is providing the motorized power to move both.
We make a brief stop along the way to stretch our legs. It is filled with people selling all sorts of dried fish
Some of the houses look very nice. There is always a blend of poor, old and new in each village
AH HA ! Here is a picture of the tiller, with wheels, pulling a wagon. Too bad about the rain drops on the windshield.
The roads are similar to yesterdays, winding along on mostly flat terrain
There are road side stalls all along the way
Coming in to a small village
Here's another view of a tiller connected to a wagon. Obviously a popular mode of transportation in these farm areas. Double duty !
A railway bridge across a river.
It is pouring rain, but the rice farmers are still working in their fields.
We arrive in Vientiane, where it is obvious that some people are very well off
new motorcycles or mopeds.
There was even "used" car lot selling smashed up cars ! I wasn't quick enough to get a picture, but it would have been priceless!
Tuk-tuks in Vientiane
The traffic near Vientiane wasn’t too bad and we got to the “Family Hotel” at noon. Just enough time to shower and change clothes before going out for lunch.
My room at the Family Hotel. Today Melissa & Lindsey are sharing a room and I'm on my own. In case I haven't mentioned it yet, since we are 3 solo female travellers (Violet paid the single supplement to have a private room throughout the trip) we are rotating so that each one of us gets to enjoy some privacy on a regular basis.
And look at how nice the shower area is ! I LOVE IT !
The view from my room
Looking down at the Hotel lobby from the 3rd floor (Ground floor, 1rst, 2nd, 3rd). No problems though since this hotel had an elevator.
The hotel is located on “rue Pangkham, a short walk to “rue Setthathirath" where many restaurants are located. Most of us ended up at another Joma Bakery Café to eat a nice fresh salad. (Same bakery chain as in Luang Prabang, and they wash all their veggies and fruits with bottled water.) I was also able to find an Internet office to print out my Vietnam Visa Approval letter, which I will need when we reach Hanoi. No empty pages left in my passport however ! ! ! Not sure what they will do with that. Canadian Government travel notice did not indicate in the visa requirements that full pages were needed for many countries. Hopefully Cambodia is just a regular stamp, I still have room for a few of those.
After lunch Scott arranges a tuk-tuk for us to visit the
COPE centre. I had not realized that
during the Vietnam War, the USA had illegally
bombed Laos between 1964 and 1973. “In July 1962, the Geneva Accord was signed by 14 nations
(including the US and North Vietnamese) – which forbade the presence of any
foreign military in Laos and demanded that existing foreign military forces in
the country be withdrawn. The
first bombing was conducted under US President Johnson in 1964. Ironically, when Johnson declared, to great public approval in 1968,
that the bombing of North Vietnam would cease, the bombing of Laos increased as
more airpower became available. The bombing of Laos was conducted without the
approval of Congress or the knowledge of the American people. Key political
figures constantly denied the bombing of Laos, and when it did become public
they still denied that they were bombing civilian targets. The majority of the
indiscriminate US B-52 carpet-bombing was conducted under President Richard
Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.” “From 1964 and 1973, the US dropped
260 million cluster sub munitions on Laos in a covert mission to destroy North
Vietnamese supply lines.” Although North Vietnam broke that treaty agreement, it certainly
did not give the USA the right to break it as well. The truth came out at some
point, while they were still dropping cluster bombs on villages and fields, when
an American came to Laos to help people here. He was interviewing displaced
villagers and he kept hearing the same stories over and over again. Farmers had to seek shelter in caves because
of the bombing of their villages. When
they tried to cultivate their fields, the “bombies” would go off and they would
be killed, as well as those who were standing nearby. He finally had enough proof to go back to the
USA and speak before the Senate. The
whole truth came out at that point and President Johnson immediately called for
a stop of the illegal bombings. 37
years after the last cluster bomb fell on Laos, they are still causing death
and maiming civilians here. http://www.bombharvest.com/background.html
Laos is a very poor country and most of the people who
live outside the three main cities are subsistence farmers. They risk their lives every day in the
regions where these unexploded cluster bombs are just waiting in their
fields. It is estimated that 30% of the
bombs that were dropped remained unexploded.http://www.savannanet.com/uslegacy.htm More interesting information on what the US has done … and NOT DONE… to “assist” Laos since then. Quite an eye opener.
Notice that the sign is made up of prosthesis: arms, legs, feet.
These statues are made of bomb cassings and other bomb fragments
These are "bombies" or cluster bombs. They have been hung up to demonstrate how it looks like when they drop from the skies.
This is one bombie that thas been opened up so we can see the outer and inner shells, as well as the pellets within.
A poster, to teach children about what to do if they find a bombie. NOT TO TOUCH. Go tell and adult so that the location can be identified and the bombie safely removed.
Prosthesis of all kinds, old and new, wooden, plastic or metal
http://www.copelaos.org/ban_cluster_bombs.php if you want to read more about the work
that COPE does. Not only are they
helping to locate these bombs and safely detonate them, they have trained
hundreds of local people to assist. They have assisted in the development of
information to schools to warn children not to play with these if they find
them, but to immediately tell an adult,
The bombie is then tagged for
safe detonation. Some boys try to crack
open the shell of the bombies (it’s the size of a tennis ball) to extract the
ball bearings inside. COPE also donates
prosthesis to those who have been badly injured by these UXOs and help with
their rehabilitation. ANY ASSISTANCE
WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED. COPE stands for Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic
Enterprise.
Very somber visit !
I felt like throwing up because some of the images of injured people
were very graphic.
These are utensils that the locals have made using metal from bomb casings. They are hard working ingenious people as well as artisans. Nothing is wasted.
This is a shell casing which had contained bombies. It is now used as a planter.
We got back on the tuk-tuk and were driven to Vientiane's version of the Arc de Triomphe; quite an impressive building.
Patuxai, Vientiane's version of the Arc de Triomphe.
Sign within the building: “Patuxay, or Victory Gate of Vientiane, was built in 1962 but never completed due to the country’s turbulent history. From outside it appears even less impressive, like a monster of concrete. The seventh floor serves as an excellent view point of the city.”
Wow, what great advertisement ! I think they need to change their communication person.
I checked on the internet to get more information: It was built (to commemorate Lao people who died in post-revolutionary wars) from cement which had been donated by the USA to build runways at the airport. It was built between 1957 and 1968. Laotian in design, decorated with many Buddhist mythological figurines such as of kinnari (half-female, half-bird figures).
It is a huge structure with an open area in the middle
The bottom is nothing to write home about, but the ceilings are beautifully detailed
This is a kinnari (half-female, half-bird figure)
A zoom in on the roof line. There are people up on the top level terraces
It was so hot and humid however (though not raining) that I decided to opt out of the climb to see the view; only John went up while the rest of us sat in the shade. No idea how hot it is today, but my clothes are soaked from sweat.
Government buildings on Lang Xang Avenue
This is a shell casing which had contained bombies. It is now used as a planter.
We got back on the tuk-tuk and were driven to Vientiane's version of the Arc de Triomphe; quite an impressive building.
Patuxai, Vientiane's version of the Arc de Triomphe.
Sign within the building: “Patuxay, or Victory Gate of Vientiane, was built in 1962 but never completed due to the country’s turbulent history. From outside it appears even less impressive, like a monster of concrete. The seventh floor serves as an excellent view point of the city.”
Wow, what great advertisement ! I think they need to change their communication person.
I checked on the internet to get more information: It was built (to commemorate Lao people who died in post-revolutionary wars) from cement which had been donated by the USA to build runways at the airport. It was built between 1957 and 1968. Laotian in design, decorated with many Buddhist mythological figurines such as of kinnari (half-female, half-bird figures).
It is a huge structure with an open area in the middle
The bottom is nothing to write home about, but the ceilings are beautifully detailed
This is a kinnari (half-female, half-bird figure)
A zoom in on the roof line. There are people up on the top level terraces
It was so hot and humid however (though not raining) that I decided to opt out of the climb to see the view; only John went up while the rest of us sat in the shade. No idea how hot it is today, but my clothes are soaked from sweat.
Herkam Palace, or Presidential Palace
That Dam: “Known as the ‘Black Stupa', many locals believe this mythological structure was once inhabited by a seven-headed dragon (now dormant) that stood to protect the city from the threat of the Siamese. Though it's never been dated, it's estimated to have been constructed in the 15th century.”
We walked back to the hotel from there, along some
different streets, and had a bit of down time before dinner. At 6:30 we walked back to the street where
the bakery and Internet were located but continued down a different side street
towards the Mekong River. We stopped at a Laos
Restaurant owned by a French speaking gentleman and enjoyed various
dishes. I had duck, noodles and vegetables, which
had been cooked in a wok; delicious!
We continued our walk to the waterfront. Unfortunately could not see much of anything
by then since it was dark, but across the Mekong we could see the lights on the
Thailand side. Maybe I will walk back
tomorrow morning before it gets too hot…and if it isn’t raining.It was only around 8 pm when Violet and I left the group on the waterfront and headed back to the hotel. Neither of us are really interested in the “bar scene” thing and we were both looking forward to resting.
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