Day 22-23

Day 22

After a late night last night we had a leisurely start to the day before grabbing some brunch and then heading to the airport to fly to Laos!

I waved goodbye to Vietnam which I have absolutely loved, definitely my favourite so far!
A super quick flight only about an hour and then quickly bought our visas and headed outside. I stood with the girls whilst we waited for everyone and they were vaping, next minute an official comes up and asks for their passports and takes them away. I rushed to find Lee to tell him and it turns out vaping is illegal in Laos! Luckily they just had to pay a fine. Lee told us that they were just looking for a bit extra to go straight into the pocket as originally the fine was meant to be $50 each but Ruby managed to negotiate it down to $15- good on her I was super impressed! Lee said that vaping and smoking is “80% illegal” whatever that means!

After this was all sorted out we headed to the hotel and I met the two new girls who were joining our group as two of the other girls flew home today which was sad! I’m actually sharing a room with one of them- Emma, so we had a quick chat before heading out for a group dinner and then an early night.

Day 23

Setting off at 8am we climbed into a mini van to take us around the main sites of Vientiane which is the capital of Laos! I have to say it doesn’t feel like a capital city at all and Laos so far is exactly what I expected. After studying it in a level geography I knew it wouldn’t be massively developed and VERY different from Vietnam which so far has definitely been the case.

We first visited the “Buddha park” which is an area with hundreds on status of Buddha which was really interesting and fun to walk around. It’s fascinating in Laos there is a differnt form of Buddhism that has influences of Hinduism attached to this and you can see this in some of the status as Buddha isn’t pictured in his classic style or pose!

We then headed to Pha That Luang temple which is a painted gold temple but what was actually more impressive was a different temple in the complex which had a completely painted ceiling with stories of Buddhism it was stunning!

We then quickly visited the victory arch which was built after the “secret war” in Laos and then the COPE museum which was exposing the reality of the lasting effects of the war. So for those who don’t know, the US bombed Laos due to the Ho chi minh trail which was through the mountains and jungle of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia and was under the control of the Vietnamese communist party which they used to transport weapons and supplies. The US used cluster bombs which split in midair into lots of smaller bombs, the problem is that around 15-30% don’t explode on impact. Laos has had hundreds of thousands of bombs dropped and many didn’t explode. To this day there are still many that haven’t been detonated. They often go off when a farmer accidnelty hits one, a stove can set one off, young children playing with them because they don’t know what they are and many more. So it was definitely an insightful museum but hard to read as the victims are always rising.

We then headed back to the hotel to check out and get back onto the bus to travel to Vang Vieng which is about 2 hours away then went straight out on a hike. It was more like rock climbing we literally had to scramble up I was not very happy about this! It was beautiful though!Baca lagi