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Cope with me for a moment
Back on the horse Robert. People need you. So I say so to myself.
It’s hard sometimes to write, because sometimes you have a blog post that you want to get out there, but you don’t have the time to do the research to do it justice, and such is the case in this blog about Laos.
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- Entrance to COPE
I have left Laos over 10 days ago I think, and still this post has been haunting me since then. Making it harder to move on to more current updates. It has to do with a museum, small little museum in Vientiane, the capital of Laos.
As far as capitals in the world goes, Vientiane is very underwhelming, the night market was very repetitive, the food ok. Overall, if someone was to ask me, should I go to Vientiane? My answer would be, not really, however if you do have a few hours of your time in the city I would recommend going into the COPE museum. That is, if you can find it first. Is not really a museum, but more like a room with some exhibitions on it. It’s free and it survives on donations and fundraisers.
So what is COPE? To answer that, I need to give a little of history lesson. One I didn’t know myself until I was in Laos. You see, Laos has the sad record of being the MOST bombed nation in the world. More than Germany in WWII, more than Vietnam, more than Korea. During the Vietnam war, Laos was a neutral country, albeit with communist ties. And they supported the Vietnamese communist movement. The USA in order to stop the influence of Laos in the Vietnam war, they decided to secretly bombed the previously-declared neutral country. And they did, for 9 years, at an average of a bomb being dropped every 8 minutes. Unfortunately, is a black eye in US, since they denied for years that they were doing this, and ultimately it had very little effect in the overall effects in the war. A better person with a history degree can provide a more detailed account of this events and the complexities of them, but after doing some research, it seems that all this facts do add up.
Which brings me to COPE. COPE is an organization that strives to provide prosthetics to the people that TODAY are still being affected by the effects of this bombs. Because not only were this bombs dropped, but a lot of them didn’t explode, so they are still in the ground, and when farmers working on their lands can ignite this bombs, kids trying to find scrap metal will try to dig the bombs for the metal might (have) detonate this old bombs. Many losing limbs or worse lives. COPE helps those affected by this bombs. Is very somber reality and very respectful work this organization does. They don’t receive money from the government (or very little if they do). The exhibition is small but powerful. It makes your heart ache for those affected by events that happened over 40 years ago.
COPE is housed within the Center of Medical Rehabilitation, one of the hospitals in the capital. You don’t see many signs until you are there, so is not easy to find.
Prosthetics have been used, created or outgrown by the kids.
Exhibit of the cluster bombs used during the attacks on Laos, the bigger bomb would relase about 75 small grenade size bombs
Closeup of the bomb inside the cluster bomb
In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
“In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
-Erasmus
Vang Vieng for some weird reason (apparently a travel show in Korea named Vang Vieng as the place to go) has a really big influx of Korean visitors, by far outnumbering all other nationalities combined. Most English signs are also in Korean, and there’s even a korean market (K Mart). I’m just saying there’s a lot of koreans here.
After having fun kayaking, and my night about to begin, I wasn’t expecting much from it. I was to meet Jenn and the Koreans from the night before. I had dinner (Red Curry Soup w/ Chicken and Rice) while the rest of the table had a beer. Did I mention I don’t really drink?
After dinner we went to the one place I really didn’t feel like going, but with David and Tatiana also going, I couldn’t say no to go to Sakura bar. Sakura bar is THE place to be in Vang Vieng if you want to party. They have free drinks from 8pm to 9pm, followed by happy hour. We get there at 8:50pm so we only have time for one free drink. The free drink is a water down whisky, with more coke. Water down drinks are fine by me, and free is even better in this equation.
Inside the bar I ran into Jaume and Lidia, a Spaniard couple I met earlier while kayaking. They told me that they would be renting a scooter in the morning, and if I wanted to join them. I said sure, and Thomas and Jenn were also up for it.
After hanging out with my friends from Chiang Mai, the Korean girls started to dance with some of their friends and invited me over to dance with them. The circle is small, about 6 people, 3 girls, 3 guys. It might be insensitive to say, but none of them had any real dance cordination. I will never claim to be a good dancer, I’m average on my best days, but on this night, I was good in comparison. We start dancing, the crowd is getting bigger, they are following my lead (I wouldn’t believe it if I wasn’t there) and we are all having fun. I’m even drinking a blue cocktail, that I didn’t even finish. The night is going awesome, crowd keeps growing, I’m no longer in control, and then Gandam Style comes up, and the place just takes on another level of craziness. Every Korean in the place acted like if the national anthem was being played at a futbol stadium. The place is just moving, this song they DO know how to dance it and sing it, the whole floor is shaking. There’s just dancing and singing like if Psy could hear them back home.
After an hour or so, I head out, I just sweated more in there, than I did the rest of the day kayaking. I ran into the Spaniard couple one more time, and we recheck we were still on for the morning. I head to my room and my two roommates were sleeping their tubing experience from the afternoon.
Woke up early and talked to the roommates (Brits Felix and Ed), see if they are staying one more night. It just made more sense to me, since Vientiane (capital of Laos) is also very small, stricter, and both Thomas and Jenn are going on Friday. They seem noncommital about one more night, but just let me know, I can pick up my bag from reception later and find another accomodations for the night if they decide to move on.
I head out to rent the bike, Thomas is MIA, and Jenn and me join the Spaniards in my very first scooter experience. Not only is it a scooter, but is a manual scooter. Jaume gives me a 2 minute lesson in how to ride it and we set off to go to Blue Lagoon.
Blue Lagoon as the name implies is a deep lake where there’s rope swings, chutes and launching/diving spots into the refreshing crystal clear blue water. Along with the entrance to the lagoon, there’s also admission to a cave. Thinking that this is just another Elephant Cave, I go up the mountain unprepared for it. Because is a REAL cave. Deep and dark, and went deeper into the mountain than imagined by anyone in the group. We explored the cave as much as we can, but is nothing compared to what seems to lie beyond. Wish I had time to go back. Be prepared if you want to do it. Headlamps are provided (for a fee) and good hiking, can get wet shoes, maybe even rope.
After the Blue Lagoon we went to a fall, but it was more of a stream coming of a rock than a fall. I wasted 10,000 kip ($1.25) in this endeavor. Maybe it would look more impressive later in the monsoon season, but certainly not worth anything at the moment. Skip this attraction.
Along the way I rode my scooter, it was intimidating at first, but easier as you get the hang of it. Going through unpaved roads, and treating it like my red-headed step child was awesome. You go through dubious bridges, slippery up hills and share the road with buses. Recommended. This was the cheapest scooter I found price wise, only paying 40,000 kip (almost $5). This experience is a build up to maybe buying a scooter in Vietnam, since it seems is done by other backpakers to go from Ho Shi Min to Hanoi (or backwards) and sell the scooter on the destination.
And went I went back to my Guest House, I had one of the best surprises a backpacker can have. My roommates Felix and Ed, decided to move on to their next destination, but they PAIDfor my room tonight. So that means I’ll have a full room for myself for the first time since I left the U.S. and free on top of that. Hope you read this Felix and Ed, but you guys rock!!!!
Don't Follow My Lead 