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Published: September 17th 2010
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Earlier on i wrote that the only thing i knew about lao was that you get a basket of veggies with every meal; i was wrong and now i sit here humiliated. There is as much meat here as anywhere in the world. In fact Lao is all about the barbecue. Every day sunset thousands of barbecue fire up around no matter where you are. They are just little charcoal ones but on the scale that this country bbqs i believe there is more charred goodness than in canada. The morsels are mostly small tender marinated meat on skewers and quarter chicken on a stick and it is hard to walk anywhere at night without having meat sticks shoved in your face. Some places take it to the next level and cook whole fish drenched in garlic or pile on fresh spring rolls. Not much in the way of veggie or vegan fare and we don't eat much of the bbq but i feel the need to convey how surprised we were as dinner over the barbie is a north american standard and most little boys learn to cook bbq long before a stirfry or casserole.
Continuing with misconceptions. Lao
Patuxy monument
aka the arc de triamph is the most bombed country on earth. From 1968-73 ( i believe) there were over 580 missions flown over lao dropping millions of bombs monthly and costing the USA 2 million dollars a day to sustain. The reason for this was that communists from north vietnam were hiding in the hills of north lao so the natural thing to do was to bomb the entire region constantly and more than any other place. This of course did not stop the spread of communism as BOTH lao and vietnam are currently lefty states and during the bombardment itself many of the guerrillas were living in large limestone caves quite safe from the aerial onslaught. The history of US involvement in this area is highly contradictory and contestable as a violation of human rights but it is far enough in the past that most people don't mention or think of it.
The rural landscape of lao is just so serene it is hard to imagine the carnage that once transpired here and that it lasted for so long. Vientiane itself was spared destruction and i am very happy for that. This place is a little slice of france in the tropics
and the bakeries alone are proof. Outside of a store selling high fashion that i cannot afford there are little old women mixing noodle soup and fresh fruit shakes. The boulevards are wide and full of trendy young laos sipping lattes. There is even a monument modeled after the arc de triamph and made with cement donated by the US (before the war) that was supposed to be used for the construction of an airfield. The place is just sort of juxtaposed but beautiful all the same... though i tend to have a soft spot for juxtaposition.
Today we obtained our visas for vietnam in under 20 minutes, quite astounding. We are heading into remote and rural northern lao then to a mountainous border crossing to vietnam. All should go well but from what we here everything takes a long time from buses to bureaucracy so we shall see.
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Dean
non-member comment
Bombs
I don't understand why the USA has any reputation other than nasty, aggressive, war mongering bully. Yes, I grew up there but did not realize how bad it was until after I was away.