My travelling party of three was cut down by one when one of the party left to join some other travellers bound to locations farther north, and AJ and I weren't ready to leave Luang Prabang (rhymes with gong).
The Australian couple told us of a museum that they visited, a museum so new it wasn't mentioned in any guidebooks, and it sounded like an interesting place, so after grabbing food, we strolled over there, passing the Luang Prabang Provincial Police HQs along the way, which looked like a decaying cold war relic with a wall covered with a massive faded red background and faded yellow hammer and sickle next to the faded red white and blue of the Lao flag.
The museum was the visitor's center for Lao UXO, a government organization backed by the U.N. and other non-profits that is dedicated to clearing the unexploded ordinance (UXO) that still litters the Lao countryside and is still maiming and killing people 30+years after it was dropped, as well as educating the populace and schoolchildren to avoid such sites and to not play with any unknown metal or items that you find.
It was a small museum, but very well done, and covered with defused bombs so you know what they look like. (I'll discuss the U.S. involvement in Laos in another post, since it is much more relevant to my activities in Phonsavan.) There are several reasons why UXO is still a problem for Laos--one, there is simply so much of it, and lots of it is buried just underneath the surface, and there are countless of examples of farmers or people digging in their yards striking a metal object and it subsequently exploding; two, the majority of the uxo are small "bombies"--the tennis ball sized mini bombs dropped by cluster bombs and released in midair and scattered over a wide area, which means they aren't as readily noticeable, and are the perfect size and shape to attract the attention of local kids (mainly boys) who then use them as toys; three, Laos is one of the poorest countries on earth, and the scrap metal trade, though illegal, is one way to make extra money to feed your family, so people are sometimes so desperate that they try to break apart a bomb, knowing full well of the risk of doing so; four, clearing the fields of UXO is a time-consuming, labor intensive process, and there simply aren't enough teams/groups of people out there to get to every site and clear it immediately; finally, though they know the general area that the bombs were dropped, it is impossible to pinpoint the exact location of where the materiel landed, so you have to rely on villagers who accidentally run into or discover relics and scrap to inform you.
As a lighter note, they showed a documentary ending with JFK, with his irish bostonian accent, butchering the pronounciation of Laos (his version rhymed with "chaos"--it actually should be said similar to the word "louse").
I then decided to rent a bike, which made for all sorts of interesting adventures, as it was next to impossible to control, and had brakes that squealed like little pigs. After finally getting the hang of it, I rode down the Mekong, boarded a local barge, and crossed the river to try to explore the other side. Unfortunately, most of the roads over there were dirt roads, and I had no desire to pay the full replacement cost for the bike, so I headed back over. Just as I get on board the barge, accompanied on board by a minivan and a pickup truck with two water buffalo in the back (there aren't any bridges over the mekong near Luang Prabang), it starts to rain. Hard. You could see it coming down river, looking like a wall of white. I was shielded for a little while, but after the successful crossing, I was immediately exposed to the rain, and retreated to my guest house which was thankfully nearby to wait out the storm.
After the rain had fallen (thanks Sting!), I kept exploring, stashing my bag in my room, to avoid it getting soaked. While riding, I realized there is in fact something tweaky about my left knee, and that six weeks of travelling has left me a little out of shape--there is a noticeable crown to Luang Prabang, so while riding downhill and coasting was quite fun, getting back uphill wasn't necessary as fun. Of course, it started raining again. Hard. I was forced to seek shelter underneath a gas station before finally resuming my travels.
There's a wooden bridge only accessible to motorbikes and bikes, and I was feeling adventurous, so I decided to cross it and ride for a little while in the Laos countryside just outside of town. Because my front tire had a mind of its own, keeping it on the level two by fours that formed a slightly elevated path/balance beam over the wooden planks of the bridge proved to be an exercise in wrestling.
As I'm riding just outside of town, a teenager wearing a green shirt riding up ahead looks back, slows down, and starts riding beside me. Because I'm an American, I start to get a little bit suspicious, and am thankful for my bag being back at my place--he could have only stolen my hat, sunglasses, and a bottle of water. There was nothing to be concerned about, though. He was simply riding to the hospital up the road, and just wanted to have a friendly conversation and practice his english. When he reached his turn, he said goodbye, and went on his way.
By sheer coincidence, I managed to pick the road that led out and ended at the airport terminal, just 4kms outside of town. After getting there, I turned around and headed back, returning the bike, and rested at my guesthouse for a while.
I wanted to do two things that night--arrange onward transportation to Phonsavan (coincidentally, an australian man and his twenty something daughter, and their former neighbor who were staying at our guesthouse headed there early that morning. I wish I could have had a sound recorder to record the two men's voices, because they had some of the greatest Australian accents I have ever heard--a slow drawl that sounded like their mouths were full of gravel), and do some souvenir shopping at the night market.
In markets in SE Asia, bargaining is a must. As a tourist, I know that getting the local price will be impossible. That doesn't mean, though, that I can't get a fair price--which is usually amounts to paying your original starting price, plus about 1/3 of the original difference between your price and the seller's price. By "fair" price, I mean a price that I don't mind paying so that i don't feel like i'm getting ripped off, and a price that the seller is perfectly happy with.
For whatever reason, bargaining works a little bit different in Laos than in the rest of SE Asia--usually, if the only difference between your price and the seller's asking price amounts to less than a U.S. dollar, you can walk away, and the seller will then agree to that price. In Laos, they don't chase you.
I was looking into buying two tshirts--AJ had already bought a tshirt earlier, paying 15,000 kip for it, so we knew that 15,000 kip (a little less than two bucks) was a fair, market price to pay for a tshirt. Indeed, I bought one tshirt for that price after starting at 10,000, and the seller started at 25,000. I was looking around for another place to buy another tshirt, but several sellers refused to budge from 18,000 (about 40 cents) and agree to 15,000, even after I told them that I just paid that amount a couple of stalls down. They looked at me like I was crazy, and I walked off. It was their loss. Just a couple of more stalls down, after the seller started at 25,000, I told her that I had just bought a tshirt for 15,000, and she quickly agreed to the price, and the deal was done.
Some might find it petty that I would refuse to pay 40 more cents, especially in a place with so much poverty, but my argument is that by paying that extra money, I take business away from some of the vendors who are perfectly willing to settle for that price--and who could also use the money. I'm not driving the price down by any means--I'm just paying what I and the seller both feel is a fair price.
Anyway, off to Vientiane shortly via air from Phonsavan--AJ and I were not about to go on a 10 hour bus ride using the same route we took to Phonsavan, and it just so happens that two people on our minivan to Phonsavan are on the flight as well.
My knee still has a nice greenish/brownish bruise from being jammed against the seat in front of me for six hours.
Pictures are of me at the plain of Jars, and me with the owner of the guesthouse that insisted on pouring us liquor at checkin.
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