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Articles Tagged ‘Laos’

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Songkran Water Festival

Saturday, April 15th, 2006

Day before yesterday was New Years in Lao. Yesterday was New Years in Thailand, although the celebration continues for several days in these countries. We get it again! Leila took a cheap bus to Kao San Road while I flew on Lao Air…which the U.S. state department forbids their employees to fly on, I might add.

A German guy sat next to me who is based in Vientiane but developing cooperatives all over Asia. He is on his way back to Germany for Easter week. If you want to write, he said, visit Monyghenda in NW Cambodia. He is a former monk who went to the US for a degree and has started an organization called “Buddhism For Development” in Battambong, Cambodia. Oh how I wish!

Pulling into Sukhumvit 22 I was very glad I only had to go from the taxi to the front door of the guesthouse (Bourbon St.) Meanwhile kids spilling water from the Skytrain ramps onto unsuspecting pedestrians below and even more kids hosing people from the sidewalks. This morning on my way down to breakfast, a young farang was at the reception desk with a water gun. “Not finished,” I asked. “Yes, I’m finished…this is for self-defense,” he asserted.

Feels good to just chill out and cat-nap in my room today.

Tuk Tuk Tour

Saturday, April 15th, 2006

After the Lao Cotton Company party, Villa, the driver, took a nap in his tuk tuk while we rested in our room. Later that night we toured the city under the lights.

Villa, it turns out, is not just a tuk tuk driver. His other job is finding unexploded ordinances that had been dumped onto Lao by the millions during the Viet Nam War by CIA pilots dressed in T-Shirts and shorts. Of course at the time Nixon insisted we weren’t in Lao or Cambodia during the war. We weren’t…officially. But ask any Lao whether we were and you will get your answer. Before any new thing can be constructed…like a new dam that is being built now in the south of Lao, unexploded bombs have to be found before people get their bodies blown to bits. This will be going on for years and years to come.

Villa’s father fought in the war against the French and he was quite knowledgable about his country’s history. “As long as we are not disturbed by any other country we will be able to develop economically,” he says. “We are at peace now, he adds and I think the future looks good.” I agree.

I spent two days on this trip trying to find the old neighborhood in the city center where I had stayed two years ago and couldn’t figure out why I didn’t recognize anything. It turns out the streets have been paved, street lights put up and new businesses put up by the dozens!

Sabaidee Pi Mai Lao!

Thursday, April 13th, 2006
Lao New Year (and in Thailand) is a time to encourage young people to absorb the spirit of cleaning their temples, houses, stupas of their ancestors and apparently the bodies of anyone, especially the foreigners they come across. The purpose ... [Continue reading this entry]

Vientiane

Tuesday, April 11th, 2006
1wXSp3CkNsDoJl3s0SgHmw-2006171144731304.gif Seeing the Mekong in Vientiane during dry season was a worse shock than seeing it in Luang Prabang...down hundreds of yards from the water line in the wet season. Leila, my Australian travel ... [Continue reading this entry]

WARNING

Monday, April 10th, 2006
Never come to Northern Thailand or Lao during the dry season which is now. Slash and burn fires send smoke against the mountains and beyond. You won't see anything and the Mekong River will be down to a trickle.

Vang Vieng

Sunday, April 9th, 2006
LKcJ5S1GCDOhltUeaMWmZw-2006185144552848.gif Beside the Nam Song River, against stunningly beautiful limestone karst mountains that remind me of Guillin China, is the small town of Vang Vieng...a backpacker haven. Well, the mountains would be beautiful if ... [Continue reading this entry]

Road South To Vang Vieng

Sunday, April 9th, 2006
1wXSp3CkNsDoJl3s0SgHmw-2006171144731304.gif Slash & Burn! The mountains here are obscured by the smoke from slash & burn fires as in Chiang Mai so unfortunately the sunset over the Mekong isn't as clear and beautiful as ... [Continue reading this entry]

Phousi Market

Sunday, April 9th, 2006
LKcJ5S1GCDOhltUeaMWmZw-2006185144552848.gif I discovered today that the Talat Dala Market that used to be up the street toward the river has moved to the outskirts of town and is now called the Phousi Market (pronounced "poosi ... [Continue reading this entry]

Lao “Disco”

Monday, April 3rd, 2006
ySKKSpbtXBjgyhP6z8LuC0-2006217035001655.gif Last night a lively 50 year old woman that teaches kindergarten in Alberta Canada, a young woman from California who is a consultant to a California educational testing company, an even younger woman from ... [Continue reading this entry]

Smile Yoga

Monday, April 3rd, 2006
I practice smile yoga... My gift to everyone. "Sabaidie," I say Not knowing their condition Hearts open Feeling Divine.

Lovely Lao

Wednesday, November 20th, 2002
ySKKSpbtXBjgyhP6z8LuC0-2006217035001655.gif My favorite country so far...the people are sweet but very natural and direct. Flew from Siem Reap Cambodia to Vientiane, the Capital of Lao. The "s" was added by the French so ... [Continue reading this entry]