Final Notes on Laos

Just a few more notes about Laos that I thought were interesting...

First, I always thought that people from Laos were called Laotian (I also thought that Laos was an island in an ocean somewhere...boy, was I geographically challenged).  While "Laotian" not completely incorrect, the people in Laos refer to themselves as Lao - no S.

When the French occupied the area in the late 1800s, three kingdoms were united and "Lao" was made plural to Laos.  Since 1975, the official name of the country has been the Lao People's Democratic Republic.  It seems that the "no S" message hasn't made it out of the country.

We got a report on Laos from the US State Department before we left - to better understand its government, security, etc.  It stated loud and clear that the Laos government is authoritarian and communist.  As we walked through the fields with La and he talked about farmers owning property, we asked how that worked with the goverment being communist. La was shocked at the notion of Laos being communist - he said "No, no, no, you don't understand. We are PDR.  Democratic Republic.  We vote every five years!"  We read a few weeks later that Laos had held its one party election...with the ruling party coming out on top.  Clearly, the government does a good job of making people think they have something that they don't!

And, here are some final random pics of other things we did/saw....

There are lots of street vendors, usually by temples, in Laos and Thailand that have small cages of birds.  For about 50 cents, you can pay to set the birds free.  We have no idea what the signficance of this is - or if it's just a money-making endeavor, but decided we wanted some little birdies to be free.

We walked across many bamboo bridges - they were less rickety than you would expect, but I wouldn't want to cross with a large group.

We actually had to pay to cross this bridge:

But it was worth it because it had great rocks on the beach and we were able to teach Lydia how to skip rocks.  We're all about teaching her practical life skills.

Here are some shots of the Mekong.  It's a wide, fast flowing river that is as muddy as the rivers in Kansas.  Still, there was something a bit majestic about it in person.

 No matter where we go, Lydia's favorite part is always hanging out at the pool.

 We helped the local library:

We had the hugest bug living on the umbrella basket outside of our room.  He protested and would not let let go of the basket when we tried to move him, so we decided to peacefully co-exist.  Lydia named him Bob.

When Lydia asks for dessert, we always tease her and say that she can have broccoli pie.  Of course, it's been an empty threat because who serves broccoli pie?  McDonald's Bangkok, that's who! 

We tried it.  It was awful. 

So, that's it for Laos.  Hopefully it won't be the last time we get to go there - it's at the top of our Asia travel destinations.  Who would have guessed!