Blogs from Vientiane, West, Laos, Asia - page 3

It's been approximately four years since my last blog entry but, alas, it is time to start it up again. A lot has happened in the past four years. After finishing up my post in Malawi, I then went back to the United States, finished some pre-med requirements, and started medical school at the University of California-Irvine. Last summer I had the amazing opportunity to go to Tanzania with ten of my classmates to teach ultrasound technology to 100+ clinical officers and other healthcare providers in the town of Mwanza on Lake Victoria. The trip ended with a safari in the Serengeti/Ngorogoro and a treacherous hike up Mount Kilimanjaro. While I did not blog about these experiences, the most memorable was probably getting food poisoning on my first day up Kilimanjaro and forcing myself to make ... read more

The capitol of Laos - Vientiane is a nice enough city to stroll around for a day or two and that is precisely what I did for my time here. Not a whole lot to write about. I found an overpriced guesthouse for $80,000kip. The rooms here are all overpriced and demand far outweighs the supply so I considered myself lucky. I walked about the city took in the various Wats that dot the streets, went to the museum, and made friends with some locals. All pretty standard stuff. The museum however was a little odd. The first floor had a couple of dinosaur bones, but the second floor was dedicated to the "glorious rise" of the People's Party and the resounding defeat they handed to the "American Imperialists". Commie propaganda at its best. The city ... read more

Today we are flying to Vientiane so everyone on our tour loaded all of our bags onto a bus, but first we all got on some more tuk tuks for a tour of the royal palace. The palace was really beautiful. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take any pictures so all I have are pictures of the outside as well as the Temple on the grounds. We then took the tuk tuks to the edge of town where we met the bus to take us to the airport. Luang Prabang airport only has two gates, but when we arrived there were a lot of people waiting to check in for several flights. It took quite a while for everyone to check in and then we all had to go through security and by the time ... read more

Staying in a hostel in Vientiane. Bit of a come-down after the nice hotels we have had - with unisex toilet and shower cubicles on the ground floor and bunk bed dormitories. But we have to take the good with the not so good. Went sightseeing although not a vast amount t see, but there is a golden stupa That Luang which is the national symbol, and also a Victory Arch called Patricia. Apparently the americans gave Laos some concrete to build a runway and they built (but never finished) the arch instead. In the evening we went to the cinema to see Office Christmas Party - lots of slapstick humour. Next a full day bus journey to Savannakhet. There are buses and buses, and we have seen many different grades. This had the appearance of ... read more

After running around seeing most of the major sites of Vientiane over the past couple of days it was time for something more sedate so a visit to the national museum was in order. It is only a couple of blocks from the hotel, but then just about everything in Vientiane is only a couple of blocks from the hotel. The museum is a long two story colonial building that apparently became the national museum in 1985. The building itself is in dire need of restoration and some of the papier-mache models look like they were made by school children. The place has the feel of a 1950's museum and some of the English misspellings are very amusing but despite its shortcomings the museum does a pretty reasonable job of describing the history of Laos from ... read more