Laos

We are spending about a week here in Vientiane. It is the capital city of Laos and lies on the Mekong River. We have found it to be a very quiet easy going city with daytime temps in the mid 90's. It is interesting to be in another culture. Our guide book describes the Lao people as being very gentle and laid back people. There is a saying that the Vietnamese plant the rice, the Cambodians watch it grow and the Lao listen to it grow.

The country is very poor and the communists very much in control. The national paper is the Vientiane Times--it is very dull with many of the articles simply propaganda for the aging ruling powers. Last night we had dinner at the home of the Dutch CRWRC employee working in Laos doing agricultural development. He talked about how isolated the gov't is and how poorly educated many of them are. They are the revolutionaries who took over the gov't in the 1980's and they still have a siege mentality. The Lao people, because of the lack of a free press, are reasonably satisfied with the situation. It will be interesting to see what happens as the infuence of TV and the Internet spreads through the country.

The money is called the Kip with $1 equal to a little more than 10,000 Kip. Their largest bill is a 20,000 kip which means you have to carry a large wad of money with you. Earlier when we were getting money from the bank we were amazed by the 2 inch pile we got for our $200 travelers check. A person next to me said, "Here in Laos we don't count the money we measure it." The amazing thing is that at the border crossing into Laos the Laos immigrantion office refuses to take the country's own currency and demands payment in either Thai Baht or US dollars.

Sunday we were able to attend 2 church services, which was a real highlight, those have been few and far between for us. Another highlight--don't laugh--was to get some copies of the Banner and the Today booklet from our CRWRC friend.

We are leaving Laos on Wednesday and crossing the border back to Thailand. We will spend the night on the border and Thursday morning catch the train for an 8hr trip back to Bangkok. After overnighting there we fly to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a two weeks through Malaysia and into Singapore.