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JK - Today we had another long bus journey to the capital of Laos, Vientiane. It was only 4 hours this time, but I kept myself amused listening to Colin Cotterill's 'Anarchy and Old Dogs'. This is one of a lovely series of books about a coroner/detective/spirit host in Laos - so very appropriate.
Vientiane has been controlled by a number of Countries, but most recently France, when it was named as the new capital. The French settled as a hub of Indochina, and evidence of this can be seen around the city.
After lunch we visited a couple of Vientiane's major sites. First we headed to Wat Si Saket. This temple was built in 1818 by King Anouvong and is the oldest in the city. It is a very interesting temple with a number of unique features. The interior walls of the cloister contain lots of niches which contain more than 2000 silver and ceramic Buddhas. From here we headed to Haw Pha Kaew, a royal temple built specifically to house the Emerald Buddha (which is now in Thailand). However, it is now used as a national museum of religious art.
A few of us then headed to the COPE Centre. This is an organisation that supports the victims of UXO or unexplored ordnance. It is estimated that 260 million cluster bombs or 'bombies' were dropped on Laos between 1964 and 1973. Unfortunately, 78 million of them failed to explode and since the end of the war more than 12,000 people have suffered as a result - and about 100 a year still do. This amazing organisation provides training programmes for local staff in the manufacture of artificial limbs and rehabilitation activities. The visitors exhibition within the centre was fascinating. It gave the story of what happened and examples of survivors. I think we were all quite moved by what we saw and were very impressed with the work done by the staff.
The evening was spent all together because it was our last evening with our guide Joe.
I think we are both very sad to be leaving Laos. It is an amazing country with wonderfully happy and genuine people. I am so glad we got to visit Laos when we did. Who knows what the future holds for it, but the relentless drive by foreign investors can only mean more changes are ahead.
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