Newspaper articles and beer

I've tried reading the main English language newspaper in Laos called The Vientiane Times once or twice. There are many reports of meetings of government officials either praising other officials for improving infrastructure or occasionally criticizing others for not making enough progress. There are articles trying to encourage or educate people on something; one article provided a case study on a rice farming family that became more prosperous by learning how to grow vegetables. Another article provided some statistics on progress made to eradicate poverty by 2020, where poverty is defined as adequate food, clothing, shelter, clean drinking water and access to health care. One last article on the post and telecommunications sector "stressed the importance of imbuing civil servants and workers with stronger political ideology to ensure the successful implementation of the ministry's plan in the coming years." I'm not making this up. Apparently the Laos constitution allows for a free press, but it is also illegal to criticize the government. I guess if you can't criticize, the articles above are about all you're going to get. It's meagre stuff.

I forgot to mention that when we were zip-lining a couple of days ago we went swimming in the stream and pools. Almost everyone was in a life jacket in the pools, and when I asked why, I was told they were all Koreans and so couldn't swim. I imagine some Koreans can swim but not the group of 30 or so we were with.

We enjoyed our time in the small but growing town of Vang Vieng with its red muddy roads, chocolate brown and fast flowing river, blue/green streams and pools, white and black limestone cliffs, and misty green hills. But it was time to go.

We left yesterday morning by private van, passed by endless rice fields, and listened to our driver swear in Lao every time he hit a pot hole he couldn't avoid. Along the way south we passed a town every kilometre or so, with the same yellow sign at the front of two or three stores or restaurants with a picture of BeerLao and the name of the establishment. For the first two weeks in Laos we thought there was only one type of beer for sale, which is almost true. At one point we needed to stop the van to allow a gaggle of geese to waddle past.

It's now our second day in Vientiane and I'm sitting beside the pool at our hotel after another hot and sweaty day of activities seeing the sights. Catheleen and I went for a walk around town just after 6 AM this morning to beat the heat of the day, but it was already a hot and humid 26 degrees Celsius and rising. We had a nice walk along the boardwalk though where hundreds of stalls had been set up last night selling clothes and other wares. Everything was cleaned up and removed by the morning. There were a few brave souls going for a run along the river and we saw some aerobics enthusiasts exercising in the park to a dance mix of George Michael.

This town is much bigger than the other towns in Laos we've visited. Luang Prabang has about 50,000 people and Vang Vieng has about half that. The capital of Vietiane has a population of 700,000, and boasts infrastructure we haven't seen elsewhere in this country like street lights, some side walks, a park and an actual mall. I smelled garbage almost everywhere we went. I didn't know why since I didn't see much garbage in the street and Catheleen didn't smell it. It turned out to be dried fish, which is sold everywhere, and used for soups, pho, and probably other purposes.

Here are the kids at the Lao version of the Arc de Triomphe called the Patuxai. It's a war monument built between 1957 and 1968, dedicated to those who fought in the struggle for independence from France. It's ironic to me that the monument is in the French style, albeit with heavy Lao influences. To be fair though, the French borrowed the arch war monument style from the ancient Romans.