Life in Tirana: Laos. land of rivers, mountains and gentle people

Laos (pronounced without the "s") is an underdeveloped country. 70% of this long skinny country is mountainous with the Mekong River running down a long portion. The French colonized the country from the 18th century until WWII. The kings were puppets of the French regime and life was hard for the Laotians.
Our trip began with two days of travel down the Mekong River in a long boat, stopping at a local fishing village and local markets.

Water buffalo. I ate it. Not bad.


This was our boat


Here you have the Laotian flag and the Communist Party flag.

Visit to a local fishing village.


Pounding the husks from the rice. From planting to eating, cultivating rice is very labor intensive.


Entrance to the village above and young girl with family pig below.


Drying the shelled rice.


This man is the village mayor. He has the one radio in the village to get the news up and down the river.

Faces of some of the children of Laos

Ingenious foot pump to keep oxygen flowing into the fish crates!

Luang Prabang, UNESCO city


We went to Kwang Sli waterfalls. This is a series of swimming holes and waterfalls that felt really good in the heat. With my dry skin feet, these little fish were nibbling like mad as I was swimming and no one else felt anything!


Performer acting out folktales.


Time to do laundry for $2.50. Sign says "wash and baked with water vapor"!


Got to love that Lao beer!

One interesting piece in talking to our local guides was their dislike for the Chinese who are now building economic opportunities in their under developed country. To the Laotians, the Chinese look down on them, employ only Chinese workers and spit when talking. We met many Chinese tourists and it was curious how they would come up to you, say hello and the very next question was "How old are you". That happened 5 times to me.


Sunset in Luang Prabang


Even grocery stores had shrines and below a shrine at our hotel.


Not pigs in a blanket but pigs in a basket ready for someone's dinner.

Example of the delicious meals that we ate. Below is a drink for the man. It is a bear paw in whiskey. One shot glass purchased will do the fertility trick.


Pulling the hair off the water buffalo to sell at the market!


Waiting early in the morning to give sticky rice to the monks who come by with bowls.

Roadside meat vendor above and below a woman making rice paper.


Traveling from one city to another, we were exposed to this gorgeous scenery.

Homestay at Vang Vieng.


This was the woman who hosted myself and another woman in her modest home. She ran the local store. Below the children danced for us and did this hopping game between bamboo poles as the pole holders moved them in and out.	We tried it but it is more difficult than it looks.


We took an early evening stroll through the village and our local guide mentioned that his favorite food was grilling bats that he captured in caves. We saw cages with squirrels and dogs running around. Apparently they have them as pets until they are needed as the meal for dinner!

Vang Vieng

Ready for tubing and kayaking?

Tubing inside a long dark cave.

Vang Vieng is a gorgeous setting. However it is full of young people, many Koreans and lots of loud bars and music.


From my hotel room window.

Cope Museum

This is a museum dedicated to helping to safely remove the millions of UXOs (unexploded ordnances). The US dropped 2 million tons of these "bombies" you see above (size of a pool ball) during the 584,000 missions during the Vietnam War. There is an estimated 30% failure rate of exploding. People estimate there are 78 million unexploded bombs. 300 people on average are killed or injured each year. Adults can't work in the rice fields and children are in danger walking to school. Below are the biggest concentration of these yet undiscovered UXOs.