Post #8: Travel Advisory
WARNING WARNING: Trekking at temperatures of 10-20 C is advisable. Trekking at temperatures of 30-40 C with 100% humidity is NOT advisable. However if you enjoy self imposed torture as Kasia and I do then go right ahead.
WARNING WARNING: Laos is the worlds most bombed country. During the Secret War of 1964-1973 when the US flew over 580,000 sorties dropping 1 planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day for 9 years. This totalled over 2 million metric tones of bombs that were dropped and 30% of them are still unexploded - so careful where you walk.
WARNING WARNING: The sun is hot!
The first travel adivosyr pretty much describes our two day trek/kayaking adventure out of Luang Prabang. The trek was a 7 hour long ordeal, pretty much cursing the whole entire time for putting ourselves through it. We visited a few minority villages along the way and collapsed at one of them for the night. The next day we had a short one hour trek to the river where we swam and eventually got to kayak on it. Kayaking was considerably cooler and the rapids a lot of fun. Unfortunately though in that one hour trek to the river our sunscrean rubbed off our shoulders and we ended up finding out the truth of Travel Advisory #3 - we scortched ourselves.
The next day was an eight hour long bus journey to Phonsavan. While in Phonsavan we visited Bomb craters, Hmong village, a waterfall and the plain of jars. Not about to give you a history lesson but between 1964-1973 Laos was heavily bombed by the US. The evidence and side effects of that secret war are still present. About 30% of the bombs dropped on Laos did not detonate so now there are a lot of areas where walking is not advisable as you may step on one. There are a few organizations that remove the UXO (unexploded ordinances) and it looks like they will be employed for some very long time.
SIDE NOTE: as much as I loved this area and what I saw there is another adivsory to take into consideration. Photos from these places made a huge impression on me. But they were all taken about 5 - 7 years ago and much has changed since then. I was expecting a much more desolate landscape with villages lined with old recycled bomb shells. However, over the years the land has overgrown and 5 years ago the government bought back all the bomb shells as scrap metal and when something like that can fetch $4US per shell - there is no reason why the locals should keep them - especially if their hourly income is about $0.05US. Hence Laos is changing and it is doing so at a very rapid rate. If you want to see the remaments of war then you need to do it soon - because within another few years they will disappear.
Vang Vieng was our next destination. We biked, went tubing down the river and enjoyed a Laos full body massage. Tubing was loads of fun, while floating down stream there are bars strategically positioned along the river so that you can stop have a beer and/or other substances. Also there are a lot of swinging ropes, swings and platforms to jump off of. Vang Vieng itself is not much of a town other then guesthouses and restaurants there is pretty much nothing. If you are a 'Friends' fan then you would have plenty to do as one street has about six restaurants playing episodes from 8am-10pm every single day. The restaurants play different seasons so when they are all playing at the same time its quite hard to tune one out from the other. walking down the street all you hear is the laughter coming from the tvs - sort of a haunting feeling.
Presently we are in Vientiane, the most laid back capital in the world. There are a few touristy sites to see such as the Patuxai (victory arch) and the Xieng Khuan (Buddha Park) but other then that not much else to see. We are flying out today to Hanoi and that means that I (Paulina) have only three days left =:(
So that's about it. June 22nd Paulina flies back to canada with probably about 30kg of my stuff. At that point I will be on my own for about 10 days exploring Northern Vietnam.
Until then,
Kasia
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Kasia: Off in Asia - from Nepal to Singapore and Adventure in between!
Blog/Travel Journal: http://travelingtheworld.blogspot.com/
Photos: http://nttconsulting.net/kasia/gallery/album01
posted by Kasia Koltunska @ 10:04 p.m.
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