DAY 3 - VIENTIANE

Just opposite to our hotel, beyond the very impressive (but sadly shut) Cultural Hall

is the Lao National (formerly the Revolutionary) Museum.  Most interesting (as well as some pre-Angkorian sculptures) is the comprehensive photographic collection on Laos' modern history.   

As well as some carved pieces,

lovely old photos

and curiosities like this peacock-tail (signifying royalty) howdah

{used something like this...)

the main thrust of the historical section is on Laos’ “war years”; our popular culture is so unquestioningly focussed on the war in Vietnam that little is said about the horrifying degree to which little Laos suffered merely as the misfortune of being Vietnam’s neighbour.   

Even though Laos wanted little to do with communism, it was sorely punished because Soviet-backed N Vietnam invaded and occupied parts of the country for use as a supply route for its own war against the US-backed South; the US responded by supporting S Vietnamese anti-Communist forces, including incursions into the sovereign territory of Laos, and initiated a bombing campaign against the N Vietnamese positions within the country; it's estimated that, by 1973, 580,994 B-52 sorties had been made over Laos, dropping 2m tonnes of military devices and defoliants (that works out as 700kg of ordnance for every citizen).  Unsurprisingly, it's thought that 1 in 6 of the population were killed and a proportion of the rest left with life-changing injuries. The below illustrates why.

Unsurprising then that, until recently, captions referred to running dog imperialist Americans (as well as brutal French colonialists - the French were in charge from 1893 to 1953).  The most poignant to my mind was the disparity between what the US had to hand

while the Lao soldiers were apparently better occupied picking pumpkins

All in all, a sobering morning.  But a lighter afternoon, visiting the city's premier temples, luckily virtually across the road from each other: Wat Ho Phra Keo 

and (shoes off again, of course!) Wat Sisaket

And back for a noodle supper.  The food is very good here indeed : excellent tea and coffee (both home-grown) and you're well served whatever your leanings; it's pain au chocolate and brioche and cafe au lait meets galangal and sticky rice and lemongrass. Yum