Around the world in 168 days: 2012-02-26

Saturday, March 3, 2012

COPE

As awful as the city of Vientiane was, one great thing did come out of our visit there: our stop at the COPE center!

Let's go back to the night before.....

After a very comfortable 6 hour bus ride from Vang Vieng to Vientiane, we arrived in the town around 730. We busted out the Lonely Planet and headed in the direction of the "recommended" hostel (thanks, LP). This place was absolutely disgusting but we had our bags on, it was dark, and we were exhuasted- so we stayed. We threw our bags down, locked up our passports, and headed out in search of food (we have fallen into a bad habit of boarding day-long buses without eating lunch.....makes for two starving girls come 8pm).

Within 5 minutes of our food search, Katy and I exchanged glances and knew we were outta Vientiane the next morning. The city is gross-garbage strewn all over the streets, beggars everywhere (and I am used to the Chicago homeless population and this is much worse)....and you can't walk five feet without bumping into a ladyboy hooker propped suggestively on top of a motorbike. Despite the icky feeling that was surrounding us, we had no problem making the best of the situation and actually finding some delicious pizza for dinner (first Western food we've had) and then moving on to a few different ticket offices in search of our way out of there.

Within a half an hour, we had our ticket south to Thakhek booked for the next morning. With our pick up scheduled at 1130, we made a plan to see all the sights of Vientiane in the few hours preceding. Turns out, out of the three places we went (the Laos Natural History Museum, Pha That Luang (most important national monuent in Laos), and the COPE center), the only place that was free (COPE) was by far the best thing we did in Vietiane!

A brief history lesson before I describe what COPE is.......(and please understand this is following my basic reading about Laos history, mostly from my travel bible: Lonely Planet....don't take this as complete fact)

Laos had been under control of the Siamese around the 18th century until the French eventually negotiated their control (hence the lasting French influence here)....until around the time of WWII during which a nationalist movement was formed to prevent the country's return to French rule. Further struggles ensued as the country searched for an identity.....etc, etc. Fastforward to 1965 (in conjunction with the Vietnam War) at which point the US started dropping massive amounts of cluster bombs ("bombies," as they are known in Laos) in the eastern and Northeastern regions of Laos. You can learn more about the reasons behind all of this, etc if you simply google "secret war in Laos." Or maybe most of you already know about all of this.....you have to forgive my scarce history knowledge as I write this--but at least I am learning along the way!

Back to the bombing.....from my COPE booklet: "From 1964-1973....the US Air Force carried out a massive aerial bombardment equal to a plane-load every 9 minutes for 9 years." Now what is the current problem with all these bombs? 30% of them failed to explode on landing.....leaving them scattered throughout Laos as landmines. Sadly, many children and adults are still being affected by these unexploded ordnances (UXOs). At the time of publication of their brochure, there were still an estimated 78 million UXOs in Laos, and as recently as January 2008, one bombie accident killed four children and inured five others. I don't have an exact number for how many Laos people have been affected by the bombies, but I know the number is quite high.

One of the huge components of this problem is that the metal that is found in the bombies is worth a lot of money. Remember from my previous post just how poor this country is...and many adults take the risk and go searching for bombies to sell the metal. And what do you think kids do when they see their dads "playing" with this metal? Go out and look for them as well. It's a really devastating concept and I actually felt quite guilty yesterday when Katy and I showed up at the COPE center and the nicest man, Nam, greeted us and said "Where are you from?" Should've gone with Canada.......

So: COPE (Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise). And if you are still reading at this point, then I have succeeded in my blog because I just scrolled back and this is quite possibly the longest explanation ever! Anyhow, the COPE center was established in 1997 with the goal of helping UXO victims gain access to prostethetic limbs, physical therapy, and other medical care associated with harm caused by UXO accidents. The center has expanded to help other people who just need access to orthopedic care in general, and according to the center, about 50% of their current patients are UXO victims. You must remember that medical care in Laos is almost non-existent...we in fact shared a local bus ride with a Aussie yesterday whose brother got hit by a tuk-tuk in Vientiane, the capital of Laos- and he had to be flow to Bangkok for medical care. He actually received "stitches" in Laos on his leg and when they got to Bangkok, they unstitched him and realized that the doctors in Vientiane had completely missed the fact that the accident had severed his achilles tendon.....woops.

So there ya go. Make the best out of every situation...and we definitely found a reason to be glad we were in Vientiane! If you are interested in learning more about COPE..... www.copelaos.org

It's a pretty neat organization and the people who worked there were sooo nice. There is also a documentary that we didn't have time to watch, but if anyone is interested (I'm sure I will watch when I get home) it was called Bomb Harvest, and it's Australian.

Next up? Further south to the 4000 islands, or Si Phan Don....for some time laying on the beach :)

Luang Prabang pics

Here's a few snapshots from our time in Luang Prabang, Laos!
And please ignore the new green background featured in this post... I can't get it to switch back and it's driving me crazy!


Within an hour of setting foot in our second country, we HAD to try the traditional grub: Lap (minced chicken or pork with cilantro and other spices) and BeerLaos....delicious!!

Day 2 in Laos: A trip to the Kuang Si Waterfall

Nice lil spot for breakfast

The Phosy Market in LP....found it while on our rented bicyles

You could find anything in this market: food, clothes, hardware, toiletries, fish, raw beef, etc etc

They even had a small pharmacy section

Pre-made cigarettes....

Or you could buy your own tobacco and DIY :)

Mmmm....want your fish living or dead?

Parking: 1,000 kip (about $0.15)

The lounging/food area outside of our hostel (2nd night hostel that is, first night was a disgusting place- see my previous post with water damage/mold pics)

Yummy noodles- warm-up dinner that night.


The almsgiving that so greatly disappointed Katy and me

And now the following photo credits go to Katy:

At Kuang Si again

We stumbled across this Bear Sanctuary run by freethebears.org. We ended up talking to an Australian guy who works for the organization for a while and we think we are going to volunteer with the bears in Cambodia! Sunbears in particular are used in Eastern medicine....they are put in small cages with a large-bore needle hooked up to their gallbladder to drain bile that is used to "cure" headaches among other things. This organization takes them out of these facilities and gives them a safe home to live in.

Traditional Lao Lao barbeque...cooked in a little hole in our table...this was amazing

Accompanied by as much Lao Lao whiskey as we could drink.....we stuck to two each :)

Hmong night market


Street buffet....all you can pile on your plate for 10,000 kip ($1.25). This was also super delicious.

All in all, our impression of Luang Prabang was a good one- be it a very quiet town, we had a great time there and ate some really good food!

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Time to head South

Well folks, after what we thought was going to be two nights in Vang Vieng, we are just wrapping up night five in our beautiful hostel, Champa Lao Villa.

Our bus will be here in about 2 hours to take us to Vientiane. Time to take a break from some of the partying and get back to a little culture. We did really enjoy this town, however. As cheesy as we thought it was going to be, we met some great people and were able to do a lot of outdoor activity in addition to all of the bar activity.

As you could probably tell from the pictures, I spent the first day caving! Katy wasn't feeling too hot (probably after some questionable food the night before), so she stayed in, but myself and our new English and Swiss friends rented motorbikes and headed north to one of the caves we had read about. After a bumpy, dusty, ride, we stumbled across the cave entrances. We realized that we only had one headlamp between the three of us so we ventured in hoping it would hold on for the remainder of our exploration :)
After an hour or so of walking, we started wondering whether we could actually get out on the other side as we had hoped....and realized that we couldn't. Jokes on us........

We luckily ran into a guy who was with a guide who informed us that we would have to turn around to get out on the other side. We eventually did when Nick realized that his headlamp appeared dimmer than it had before.....we would have never made it out if that light went out! Once we happily emerged into the sunlight, covered in sweat and dirt, we were in desperate need of a beer- and luckily there was a few local people who had a sign advertising beer and food.....and they welcomed us with open arms to their lunch table. The women made us some amazing food and the men were trying to feed us beer faster than we could keep up (unfortunately I had to take the brunt of most of it as the boys had to drive).

After sharing many "nok noks" (cheers!) with the family...we hopped back on the bikes, swung by our hostel and picked up Katy, and went searching for the Blue Lagoon. It was unfortunately a little too late and dark to find it....so we saved that for a few days later :) But it was a fun bike ride either way!

The next day we spent kayaking, caving, and trekking, enjoying some beautiful scenery and cool bugs....and the following day relaxing at the Blue Lagoon (pretty obvious from the pictures).

Then on to the infamous tubing of Vang Vieng yesterday! Katy and I had been very apprehensive of this concept as we know it is pretty dangerous and we thought you had to actually be in the water a lot. Turns out, "tubing" essentially means going to some waterfront bars and drinking large amounts of alcohol....the water part of it is actually pretty insignificant. So we hopped in a tuk tuk, got dropped off at the first bar, and played a few rounds of beer pong with a new group of English friends (everyone here is English or Canadian). This place is crazy.....it's like a giant fraternity spring break party......and pretty funny to observe when you are not nearly as messed up as everyone else around you :)

So now we sit, watching a few more episodes of Friends before our bus gets here. Next up: Vientiane, for a little more culture via the Laos History Museum and a historical site that was recommended to us but whose name I can't remember at the moment. I definitely want/need to learn more about the American intervention that occurred here in the 60s-70s.....there are still unexploded bombs that are now like landmines in some parts of the country that are a current danger to the local people- it is a tad embarrassing to say you are from America here as the leftovers of all of our bombing still can kill the people here. But more on that once we become more informed.

Hope all is well with everyone in the States!!!

A photo summary of Vang Vieng :)

We had a fantastic four days in Vang Vieng.....I think photos will do more justice than words in this case :)
Crossing the bridge in the Snell cave.

On my way towards the cave. We spent one day renting motorbikes and heading out to explore the local caves.

Only in Laos....driving over the rickety bridge on our bikes

Taking a bike break for some photos

The three of us got "lost" in this cave for about 2 hours with only one torch...we had to take a celebratory photo when we all made it out, light still shining :)