Sabai dee from Laos — Part I
By Mike and Linda

Location: Laos
Date: August 1, 2000

Greetings from Vientianne, the capitol of the People's Democratic Republic of Laos (pronounced without the s) — a socialist country. We have been a bit lax in sending an update to everyone since we will return home in less than two months.

Prior to arriving in Laos, we spent some time getting to know Northern Thailand. From Chiang Mai we headed north to the little Bohemian town of Pai. Pai sits in a little valley covered with bright green rice paddies and surrounded by mountains. The air is cool, the people are very friendly and the food is delicious. We didn't do much other than ride scooters (don't worry mom we wore our helmets), and relax. There is a fun nightlife here with several places offering good live music, cheap cold beer and harsh Thai whiskey — Songsarm.

From Pai we made our way North to the town of Tha Thon. The guidebooks say nothing good about this town, but it turned out to be a real gem. We treated ourselves to a posh guesthouse ($6 including breakfast) on the banks of the Kok River. It was one of our favorite settings in Northern Thailand. If you climb up above the town to the huge Wat Tha Thon, a temple popular with visiting Thai tourists, you get a great view of the Kok River as it winds it's way from the hills of Myanmar to Chiang Rai.

Chiang Rai isn't much to write home about, but the trip there is definitely a must. We bought tickets on a long tail boat that cruised down the Kok River. On the way we passed virgin rainforest and several villages with heaps of children, whom spend their days fishing and swimming. Since the water lever is high this time of year, the ride is a bit tricky. Lots of whirlpools and some rapids. We sat towards the stern and stayed dry, while others weren't so lucky.

That leads us to the country of Laos. We crossed over the border (The Mekong River) into the tiny town of Huay Xai and left the throngs of backpackers behind. It seems that a few recent bombings in Vientianne have kept the tourists, some of them, away. We chose to skip the usual tourist slowboat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang and went for the adrenaline rush, edge of your seat fastboat ride upriver into Xieng Kok. We met two English girls (Charlotte and JulieAnne) and chartered a boat for $20 US each. The price is 4 times higher than the local fare, but it is definitely worth it! Our driver turned out to be an expert at negotiating the rapids, whirlpools and giant floating trees and stumps-all at the breathtaking speed of 60 mph. Note -- we were passed by several boaters wearing helmets going much faster than us. For four hours we skirted the Thailand and Myanmar borders and are witness to some of the most amazing primary growth monsoon forest we have seen. Our favorite was the giant groves of bamboo. Luckily Laos doesn't have the deforestation numbers of their neighbors and some amazing undiscovered flora still exists.

Being in Northern Laos you really get a since of the recent history of this country. Until we arrived here, we never realized the magnitude of our government's efforts to stop the spread of communism. From 1964 to 1973 the U.S.A. used northwestern Laos as a base for the "secret War" against North Vietnam and fought in Laos. Both the US and North Vietnam presence in Laos was against the 1962 Geneva Conference accord to stay out of Laos. US Bombers dropped an average of one planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day for nine years in Eastern Laos. Many of the small towns we visited still have landing strips used by bombers at the time. All of that and we still didn't manage to disrupt the flow of Viet Cong supplies south along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. But we did succeed in leaving thousands of unexploded bombs (UXOs) that still kill and injure people everyday.

We will continue tomorrow with details of our travels here in Laos. We miss you all.

Love,

Linda and Mike

Sabai dee from Laos — (Part II)

Read More of Mike and Linda's Adventures