vientenne one

Vientiane pictures.
1. Looking out over the skyline of the smallest size national capitol in the world.
2. Wat Phat, one of the holiest places in Lao
3. Sunset along the Mekong, Thailand, a world away is on the far bank of the river, those are fish traps in the lower right
4. The U.S. fought the so called secret war in Lao from 1963 to 1975, trying to stop the so called domino theory of southeast Asian communism. For twelve years the U.S. bombed and flattened Lao, destroying schools, temples, and towns indiscriminately. Today, over thirty years later people all over Lao are still being killed by the unexploded bombs dropped on the country, an amount so staggering that it is greater than all the bombs dropped on Nazi Germany by the allies in world war two.
The brave boys and girls of MAG go out to the villages and farms and try to defuse the unexploded ordance to stop the killing of innocent men, woman, and children, but unfortunantly it is these kids who are so often killed in their work, their average life expectancy after they start working with MAG is under a year.
5. The Lao Kip, worthless in all its glory as a government billboard announces new larger denomination notes.