Vientiane

We've spent the last four days in Vientiane, capital of Lao People's Democratic Republic. Most of our activities have centered around eating and we have essentially spent the days finding different ways to kill time before the next meal. Today, for example, our only accomplishment between breakfast and lunch was preparing lunch in a cooking class. More on that later.

The new year officially marks the fourth month since we left our home in Bremerton, WA. From everything we've read, most travelers experience a slump at this point and we are no exception. A combination of the post holiday blahs, sad farewell to Chris, and almost three weeks of sickness for Andrew has taken it's toll. But we press on, focusing on the good life we have and, most importantly, food and sleep!

Yesterday, the 2nd, we followed a Lonely Planet recommended walking tour of Vientiane. The tour, along with getting lost a couple times, made for a long and exhausting day. We did, however, manage to eat a lot of good food. We also made a game of trying to spot as many Lonely Planet guidebooks as possible and found eight by the end of the day. The picture above is of the Mekong River at sunset. We ended our trek with a nice dinner at a French restaurant and had our fill of bread, wine, salad, cheese, lactaid(for Nicole), and steak.During the walking tour we stopped at a guesthouse offering a cooking class and signed up for the next morning (today). The class included a trip to the local market to pick out fresh vegetables and our choice of three dishes to learn how to make. We chose to make chicken curry, spring rolls, and papaya salad. Papaya salad is probably the only dish you haven't had and is a Lao favorite. Chris includes it in his daily diet and most people we have met say it's their favorite food. It's tasty and we wanted to learn so we could someday make it for Chris in the states. We were also hoping to make some sticky rice, but it wasn't an option.

We were the only people in the class and had(also needed) the full attention of our instructor. The dishes were pretty easy to make and we're both excited to have some new options in our repertoire. And if you didn't think it was possible to look seductive in an apron, see below! Nothing like a mid-blink photo to turn up the heat. The giant mortar and pestle looking thing is actually specifically for making papaya salad....but I have proven it to work for crushing spices.

We finished the day at the Lao National History Museum. Being unfamiliar with the history of this region and it's involvement with the Vietnam War (American War as it's called here), we were fascinated with the information and perspective. The US, for example, was consistently referred to as 'the imperialistic US and its puppets.'

Pictures of 'imperialistic US atrocities' and artifact weapons 'brought by the imperialistic US to kill innocent citizens' were prevalent in the museum. We learned about the 'official' Lao perspective of Frances failure to colonize the region followed by the US failure to fight the communist rebellion. Meanwhile, communist soldiers were depicted as smiling farmers with a gun strapped to their back or women happily firing artillery cannons. Nicole recognized similarities from pictures she had seen in Nicaragua depicting the Sandinista during their revolution.

Considering Saddam's recent hanging, it was provoking to read of thousands of Laos being killed by chemical weapons deployed by US bombs. Lao, we have also learned, is the most bombed country per capita in history. According to our Lonely Planet guide, 1.5 times as many sorties were flown over Lao than Vietnam if you include the 'secret war' leading up to the Vietnam War. History will always be subject to perception, but it was eye opening to see Lao's government approved side. Needless to say, we're now communist. Okay, maybe not, but it did make us want to learn more.

But this is all too serious - it's time for dinner!