vientenne two

1. The abandoned river front hotel that saw thirty years of spies and insurgency before falling into decay.
2. The Arch de Triumph of the east, Puaxti. Called the vertical runway because it was built with USAID cement that was supposed to lengthen the runway at Wattay International Airport, it is one of the tallest structures in Vientiane, and therefore Lao
3. Wicker baskets and balls for sale on the streets of Vientiane
4. The view from Puaxti
5. The Beer Lao Brewery

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.

monks

1. Lining up for the morning alms giving where monks parade through Luang Prabang with their begging bowls to get their food for the day.
2. Boy monks studying
3. Monks need to play too.
4. At 6:00am getting ready to get the morning offerings.
5. Young monks waiting to get into the free Internet cafe.


Publish Post

luaung prabang six

1. French colonial architecture is everywhere in Lao, from tumble down french villas long abandoned to old colonial stores beautifully restored and turned into 300 dollar a night hotels, in a country where eighty percent of the population lives on less than two dollars a day.
2. The royal palace of Lauang Prabang, the home of the king until he was deposed by the communist Pathet Lao in 1975. No one knows what became of the king, queen, or crown prince as the government has never announced their fate, but the local rumor is that they were left to die of starvation in a cave in the far north of Lao.
3. One of the temples on the grounds of the royal palace.
4. A Hmong woman getting ready to spread out her silks to sell at the night market.
5. The inside of a temple

luang prabang five

1. The group from my Lao cooking class
2. Monks robes drying in the back of a Wat (temple)
3. Long boats at a Wat, they are used to take monks up the Mekong to the Park Ou caves once a year for the Lao New Year ceremony.
4. Buddhist figures at the Lao National museum
5. A Buddhist shrine

luang prabang four

Pictures
1. Raw cane sugar
2. Too little kids who couldn't get over the falang, foreigner, sitting at their mothers stand eating a baguette and drinking mango juice. The little boy kept coming over to me with an empty glass and putting it in front of me, it took a minute but I finally realized the little tyke was thirsty after he grabbed my water bottle and poured himself a drink
3. Even boy monks need some time on the Internet
4. The main street of Luang Prabang at night.
5. Every bodies favorite dish, congealed cow blood

lauang prabang three

Pictures
1. At the Park Ou caves, one of the holiest places in Lao. These two caves hold thousands of images of the great Buddha, from simple hand covered lumps of clay five hundred years old to solid gold pieces carefully carved.
2. The Luang Prabang market, beetle nut, tobacco, raw lumps of cane sugar, and medicinal herbs and barks
3. Guess what, a tiger.
4. Pho, rice noodles and pork with a big bottle Beer Lao and a plate of fresh limes, chilies and cilantro to add as you like.

luang prabang two

1. The stupa above the royal palace all light up for the night
2. The great helmsman ready to take his boat up the Mekong.
3. The tenth biggest river in the world, the Mekong above Luang Prabang.
4. A great tutorial of how to make rice whisky
5. A Hmong family at the night market getting ready for the evening.

luang prabang one

Luang Prabang pictures
1. The balcony of my hotel where I got to sit every morning and evening and watch the world go by.
2. Every you look in Luang Prabang is blooming bougainvillea
3. Long tail boats on the Mekong
4. Chicken, salad, and nice water buffalo intestine all wrapped up in a nice little parcel to take home and nosh on
5. Street food

bus ride to Vientenne

The bus ride from Lauang Prabang to Vientiane was, shall we say, long and arduous. It took about ten hours to got nearly two hundred miles on one of the very few paved roads in all of Lao, up and down some of the steepest terrain that I have ever seen, weaving through some of the most stunning karst mountain formations on earth.
As the road wound its way up and down the mountains and along ridge lines, with steep drop offs on the side almost everywhere you are treated to fantastic jungle covered peaks rising up everywhere, and at only ten bucks it is worth the price.
Pictures.
1. In the early part of the trip we are above the cloud line for most of the time.
2. Heading up the long climb.
3. Pretty typical sight on the Lao plateu
4. There were not a lot of these little villages along the route but there were some clusters of little thatched huts scattered up and down the hills, clinging to the sides of the mountains, looking like the first strong breeze would blow them off.
5. Everywhere you go in Lao you can get a fruit shake for about 5000 Kip, or fifty cents, the main ingredients are pineapple, mango, coconut, and banana.

bangkok two

Some more pictures of Bangkok. Bangkok is a big sprawling urban mess, always moving with, it seemed to me, not much of a soul, just a way station to better parts of Thailand and south east Asia.
1. Offerings of joss sticks, incense, at a temple.
2. The one thing that Bangkok has in abundance, other than child prostitution, drugs, and traffic that is, temples. These spires are in one of the main temple complexes.
3. The best picture that I took in Thailand, the roofs of three temples.
4. A long corridor at the royal palace.
5. My first real sit down Thai food, in a real Thai restaurant, boar curry. Eating this, with all the fresh herbs and spices, was like chowing down on a garden, all the flavors and spices exploding in little drops in my mouth.