Day 37: Tuk Tuk Safari

Beth found a half day tour on Trip Advisor called Tuk Tuk Safari, and it seemed like a good smattering of culture and food for our sole day in Vientiane. We met our guide, Ere, ("air") outside the hotel at 8:30 and we're off on our adventure in the back of his Tuk Tuk.

Ere had lived in Sydney for a few years and his knowledge of Laos with a good working knowledge of English made him a pretty strong guide. Our first stop: sticky rice.

We went to this little workshop where they were making a traditional dessert. Basically it's sticky rice (white and/or black, which is rarer than white and quite a bit sweeter), soaked overnight in water, then stuffed into a piece of bamboo with tarot root, topped with coconut milk and shredded coconut and heated in a fire for an hour or so. We peeled open a couple and scooped the rice out - it was delicious. I also have a newfound appreciation for bamboo - they use it for pretty much everything in Asia - scaffolding on a skyscraper, carts, axles, fences, walls and now cooking over coals - cool.

Next stop was a silver smith - there are silver crafts almost everywhere in Vientiane and we were taken to the back shop of a retail store that is one of the last remaining silver smiths in the area. We saw a bunch of young men doing very fine, detailed saudering of bracelets and belts. Ere told us that they get paid piece meal, work seven days a week,and get paid about $300 a month, which he said was pretty decent for boys their ages. I figured this was about $0.75 Canadian an hour - wow.

We got back into the Tuk Tuk and drove out to the biggest wet market in Vientiane. It was pretty cool - many similarities to markets we've seen, though there seemed to be less activity (though maybe it was because we were there late morning) than we would usually see.

There seemed to be a few more exotic animals there, including lots of frogs!

After the market, we had a drink. It was similar to the Vietnamese coffee/tea we had during the Hoi An food tour. Beth had iced coffee with condensed milk which she liked, Abby and I had iced tea and Robin had an odd tasting fruit shake.... Should have gone for the tea Rob!

Before lunch, we had time to stop at COPE, a museum and educational centre that tells the story of UXO (unexplored ordinance) from the American war that still kills hundreds every year in Laos. Even though Laos was declared a peaceful, neutral country before the war started in earnest, the Americans dropped 1 bomb every 8 minutes for 9 years in Laos to try and deter the Vietnamese from using segments of the Ho Chi Minh trail network that ran through Laos and Cambodia. I didn't know this, but the Americans had even set up a covert airbase in Northern Laos to run their bombing missions.

The worst bombs, and the ones that were used the most, are called cluster bombs - a large bomb opens up and send hundreds of small bombs to the ground. Bombies (the small bombs) either detonated or were buried just underground where they essentially turned into land mines.

There are organizations gradually clearing areas of UXOs, but it looks like it will take a hundred years to get the job done. Farmers in rural areas are the most at risk. Pretty brutal. We saw a short documentary that was quite good, but very sad.

The COPE organization itself provides prosthetic limbs for those in need and it was pretty inspiring to see some of the successes they've had making people's lives better.

For lunch, we went to a place called Makphet which is a restaurant and cooking school for disadvantaged kids (mostly formerly homeless kids). The way it works is the kids do not get paid (they share any tips) but are given room and board in offsite dormitories. They are out through cooking (3 levels that takes about a year to get through) and then service (again 3 more levels). During that time, they also learn to read and write (only 30% of Laotian people can read and write) and to start learning English. Currently they have 25 students and 9 teachers.

The food was good - we all tried different dishes with various levels of positive feedback :-).

Last stop was to make some offerings to take to a Buddhist temple. The three girls made banana leaf cones with flowers (Beth was in craft heaven!!), then Abby and Robin decorated a little tree with yellow wax flowers.

We took the offerings to a nearby temple and went through the actions of leaving the offerings and saying a little prayer for trip safety! It was a pretty enlightening Tuk Tuk Safari, pun hopefully intended, and good way to get a little Laotian culture during our short stay in Vientiane. I like this place so far - the people seem very relaxed and super friendly. It will be interesting to see, given that we've probably seen the busiest part of the country, just how laid back the rest of the country will be!