Day 11 - Vang Vieng to Vientiane

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We were up this morning at 7:00am, woke up after the only really good night sleep since I’ve been here.
We got ready and had our included breakfast and departed the hotel just after 8:30am bound for the country’s French influence capital, Vientiane.
We stopped about 2hours into the drive just for a toilet break then drove for another 1.5hours before arriving in Vientiane. We had an hour for lunch at Café Loma; chicken sandwich was on the menu today for me. After lunch we made our way 5minutes round the corner to the Cope Centre.
COPE was started in 1997 as an initiative between the Ministry of Health of the Government of Lao PDR and several international non-government organizations.  COPE works in partnership with the National Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) and provincial rehabilitation centres to provide access to orthotic/prosthetic devices and rehabilitation services, including Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy. The long-term vision of COPE is to become a locally-staffed organization (at the moment it is run by Australians) that covers the cost of mobility devices and rehabilitation for people in Lao PDR who cannot afford it.
Laos was bombed non-stop from 1964 to 1973 at a cost of nearly seven billion dollars. Over two million tons of high explosive rained down from bomber raids launched on average once every eight minutes. The tonnage exceeds all the raids launched by every side in Europe during the whole of World War II. Indeed, Laos, one of the most sparsely populated countries in Asia, is the most heavily bombed country in the world. The lethal barrage, which peaked in 1969, included an estimated 250 million submunitions, notably infamous anti-personnel "bombies". Slightly smaller than tennis balls, and sometimes painted bright yellow, bombies can attract curious children and may be mistaken for fruit. Three decades after the bombing stopped, two or three Laotians are killed every month and another six or seven are maimed by unexploded ordnance, called UXO, left over from the war. Over 50,000 people have been killed since 1964. There are at least 300 new casualties each year, and 40% of these are children.
It’s such a sad, sad place to visit but very educational for the Contiki group. One thing you can do it donate money in the form of ‘purchasing a limb’. Either a leg or an arm is $50. I bought 2 legs; between the whole group we bought 30 limbs. It’s such a worthwhile cause.
After this, we drove around to the Pha That Luang. This is generally regarded as the most important national monument in Laos and a national symbol. After this we headed around to The Patuxai.
The Patuxai a war monument in the centre of Vientiane which was built between 1957 and 1968. Patuxai is dedicated to those who fought in the struggle for independence from France. It is also given the name of Patuxai Arch or the Asian version of Arc de Triomphe of Vientiane as it has general resemblance to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris; however, it is typically Laotian in design, decorated with many Buddhist mythological figurines such as of kinnari (half-female, half-bird figures). We climbed the steps to the top and got some lovely photos of Vientiane before we jumped back on the bus and made our way to our hotel for the night, ‘The Inner City Hotel’. It’s right on the Mekong River, and on the other side of the Mekong is Thailand, very cool.
We checked and got our passports out for tomorrow before going for a walk and watching the sun set.
We met in the lobby at 6:30pm for our included dinner tonight at ‘Makphet Restaurant’.
This restaurant was amazing. It’s pretty much the same as what Jamie Oliver did with the ‘Fifteen Restaurants’ in that former street children get a new perspective on life through training and building their confidence. Since May 2004 the project has aimed for reintegration of street children into their society, to prevent vulnerable children from having to work or live on the streets and build the right capacity to execute these goals; it teaches them the tools and skills they need to get into the restaurant and service business.
After dinner we walked back to the hotel to find out more about the stampede that happened in Phnom Penh today. There was 378 people killed and 750 injured when someone yelled that the bridge was collapsing, when it wasn’t. We are heading there in the morning so just wanted to find out what the go was.
After, we headed next door to the rooftop bar for a few drinks and chats. We gave in to sleep deprivation at about 11:00pm when we headed back next door to the hotel.
Sophie, James, Jackie and myself stayed up for a bit on the computers in the lobby before finally hitting the hay.

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