December 18, 2007 by Rick.

Our flight leaving Laos to Vietnam was slightly delayed and we didn’t get in until later in the evening, almost bedtime. We explored a little bit before eating a late supper upstairs at this nice but very narrow little new boutique hotel.

(Mary Jo, Caleb or Connor, if you’re reading before getting to Hanoi on Dec 20 pay attention for some tips! And make sure to see the puppet show!)

Food near the hotel was difficult to find. We could go about 5 blocks one way (South I think it was, but the maps were not oriented to the “standard” North, so it’s difficult to be sure) near West Lake were a bunch, (as well as the nummiest chocolate/pastry shop I had encounered since Cusco in Peru!). Heading East from the hotel a few blocks took us through a major shopping district and various daily markets. A few blcks frther East was a much larger lake, some geat restaurants and the highlight of our trip to Vietnam, the wateer puppet how. I show preface such a grandioise comment with the explanation that we only had tyhe smallest amount of time in Hanoi and in fact all of Vietnam. We flew in late one afterrnoon, got to the hotel in Hanoi in time to have a meal, unpack a bit, walk up and down one road and then pretty much go to bed. With only one free day in the capital city before flying to Hong Kong we weren’t really sure what we would be able to accomplish.

The half day or full day city, countryside, or ocean bay tours all started no later than 8:00 AM! Not our cup of tea at the best of times. Never mind the extremely heavy emphasis towards Ho Chi Min! Good gawd! There was his mauseleum where the body is on display with twice yearly fesh changes of embalming fluid and skin moisturizer. After that was his statue (and park) errected (constructed) to celebrate his life, then there’s another Ho Chi Min monument to celebrate the commie victory in the war, the Ho Chi Min this, and the Ho Chi Min that… The current government is clearly hanging on to him as a strong focal point while letting go of most of his ideals. There was also a visit to “Lennin Park” (and statue) on a tour. We opted for none, and instead I wandered out mid morning and eventually worked my way to the water puppet show box office only able to get tickets for the 9:15 PM show! (There were five shows per day.) The puppets all had elongated horizontal sticks controlling them which were hidden by the water. There was a six piece band adjacent to the water stage as well that were excellent! The puppet show was in 11 stages, or scenes. There were obviously elaborate wires and trigger mechanisms threaded through the sticks and up into the puppets that controlled extra lateral movements, mouth, arms, tails and whatever other apendage individual puppets may have had. It started off with fire breating dragons, complete with lit up sparklers, coming up from under the water and completely captivated us for the rest of the show. (Except for Luke a bit who struggled heavily three-quarters the way through to keep his poor tired little eyes open.) I got some spectacular pictures and video throughout.

After that, we grabbed a taxi home to rest before heading to the airport first thing in the morning. Our hotel was very newly built, and very boutiqeish without being outrageously expensive. This was the last of our second GAP tour, and the booked accomodations were way more extravegant than we would have stayed when booking on our own. This hotel was very narrow, (along with most all buildings we saw in Hanoi) but was 11 stories tall. It only had six to three suites on each floor but was very nice. The restaurant at the top was also amazing, with corespondingly high prices. Gone were the days of ordering a full plate meal (from Thailand & Laos) for $3-$5. Instead we were back to paying $14 for a burger and upwards of $30 for a steak. The view was nice at least!

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December 18, 2007 by Rick.

The rest of Laos was very enjoyable. We started seeing the same other caucaision tourists at different temples and museums, and then again in the next day or two in different towns. It was as if there was a standard itinerary that all tour companies followed. The capital city of Laos, Vientien, has less people than Red Deer, at around 100,000. That province (one of seventeen provinces in Laos) has the highest population of all provinjces in the country at just barely over one million. I think that the total population of Laos is just around six million. WIth few people in the cities this means that there is an unnatural amount of rural population still living along waterways, in the abundant backcountry, and all stretched along the highways and roads. Urbanism has yet to explode here.

One very cool thing we saw throughout Laos (but no other Southeast Asian country, including our future visit to Vietnam) were the tractors. They were not traditional ride-em tractors as we are used to. Instead they are a direct replacement for oxen or water buffalo. I have a couple of pictures on our web gallery already. Essentially, they are a big engine, with a visible, open clurtch, on top of two larger, fat drive wheels. Extending out the back is a long arm with two handles that house the controls. Think of a large rotertiller with two big wheels at the front instead of the tines, and then extend the control handles to an overall length of about 2.5 meters. This allows the “driver” to still sit at the front of a wagon and hold the handles just as if he were almost still controlling water buffalo by reigns. We saw lots of these things plodding along the side of highways, or going through town. Most had families riding in the four-wheeled wagons, but some had huge piles of cargo. This could be crops, to huge bundles of bamboo or wood, or even furniature and other goods going to stiores to be sold. For crop work I suppose that the farmers would merely replace the wagon with wahtever field implement they needed at that time.

Our guide told us that several years ago the goveernment decided to subsidize these mechanical animal replacement beasts, and pretty much every one in the country jumped at the opportunity. Originally they just offered a little money for villiagers to help them build fences for their animals OR a little more money in exchange for the animals in order to get a tractor. Our guides strong impression was that the people thought that the building of fences (even with a little monetary help) was just WAY too much like work and they opted en mass to get modernized instead. I asked how these subsistence farmers (about half of the people that have these walk behind tractors) could possibly afford gas!!! The guide said that they just adapted and learned to make or grow more goods to buy fuel. He said that there are barely any beasts of burden in the country at all anymore. To partially substantiate this, none of the five of us saw an oxen or water buffalo anywhere along our route. This naturally leads me to be highly suspicious of restaurants that have water buffalo on their menue’s. I can only presume that they were really offering dog meat from the abundance of local strays…

In Vientien (the Capital City of Laos) we met and visited over two days with a family from Sydney, Australia. The two boys were almost exactly the same age as Alex and Luke and they had a blast visiting and swimming in the hotel pool. On the second day, us three parents even consented to the four kids having a “sleepover” in our kids room. Us adults also shared a few bottles of wine and many great stories during and after supper. The next morning we had a leisurely schedule of sleeping in and packing up before needing to leave just after lunch.

The night before we were to fly out, we went by ourselves to a Lao Traditional Dance show. It was pretty inexpensive and very cool. The restaurant at the hotel we stayed at in Phalong Pabang also had a nightly show of Lao Traditioanl dance, but it was free and slightly more ametuerish. Before going to the airport, we had time for one last tour about a half hour away to the “Buhddist Park”. It was really nice with all sorts of Buhda & friends statutes and sculptures in a grassy park area. At the opposite end from the parking lot was a restaurant beside the Mekong River overlooking Thailand on the other side. There was some sort of large (about three stories high) round concrete climbable sculpture with a wild concrete tree at the top that I took pics of Claudette, Alex & Luke on from below. We’ll get those uploaded to the gallery as soon as we find a computer with DVD to extract them from…

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