Thailand coup and how it's affecting Vientiane

We had no plans to go to Thailand this weekend (my passport is at the Chinese Embassy, regardless) but some of our group are heading to Macau via Bangkok. Best of luck to 'em- 

For those of us in Vientiane, the coup day was noticeable really in one respect- our TV was out. HBO, CNN, BBC and every other channel had been replaced with this :

(Creepy SSR-type Thai music was playing in the background)

It sometimes changed to this:

(No idea what he was saying; everything was in Thai)

And then randomly this:

Which seemed to be a five minute inspiration video ? It had a family and some kind of reunion.

Nick's cousin was coming in from Bangkok last night, so we were worried she might have issues, but her night train to Nong Khao (at the Lao border) seemed to go ok

COPE Visitor Center

One thing that everyone says you must do in Vientiane is to visit the COPE Center. I sent my family there when Nick and I had to work back in December, and they really liked it... 

Nick and I went Saturday morning (we scootered by it, since the sign outside says "Center of Medical Rehabilitation" and has no mention of Cope). 

The COPE Center is mainly funded through donations, and helps in the rehabilitation and physical therapy for people with disabilities. They have education materials on display, which demonstrates how they get the word of their program out to the more remote villages (there are 5 sites in Laos that help with fitting people with prosthetic and doing physical therapy, and if the patient is unable to pay- like a lot of the rural village people- COPE will cover all expenses and bring them to one of the 5 sites)

One of the main attractions at the COPE Center (it is really small) is the movie theater, which plays documentaries about the work of COPE and about cluster bombs.

One of the main focuses of the center is the presence of UXOs (Unexploded Ordnance) in Laos.  Due to the Vietnam War (called the "Indochina War" over here, and that encompasses a long time before the US got involved), Laos is the most heavily bombed country (per capita) in the world. There are still many people who are killed or injured each year due to cluster bombs that are hidden, or while handling scrap metal. About half of these people are kids.

There is a movie about "The Convention of Cluster Munitions" at the center. It depicts representatives from countries around the world getting together to sign an agreement against the use of cluster bombs.

Most developed nations have signed. The US and China have not.

They had a "Leg Mountain" of prosthetic legs at the center.  

At the front of the center they have a gift shop and a donation canister (made from a prosthetic leg). Nick and I both donated to the cause, and I ended up buying a shirt that says "Stop Cluster Bombs, Please".

(Please excuse the messy apartment behind me)

For more information about UXOs in Laos, here's one site: http://www.uxolao.org/

Or you can just google "cluster bombs"

How to Win your Girlfriend a Stuffed Animal at an Asian Fair

Along the streets of Vientiane's Boat Racing Festival are little stall selling food, clothing, and junk no one needs, as well as these little "carnival" stands.  I put quotation marks around "carnival" because we're not really sure they know what a carnival is.  

Nick speculated that the people who set up the carnival stands saw the fairs in American films and tried to imitate them, but didn't really understand how the whole carnival stand system worked.

This is how the whole thing went down:

I wanted Nick to win me a stuffed animal at one of the carnival stands. Specifically, I wanted him to win me an "Asian-y looking" stuffed animal. (Prizes varied from juices to Hello Kitty crap to Asian-y stuffed animals... lots of pink and baby blue.)  So he walked up and asked this teenaged girl who was working the stand how much it was to play the dart game. Through Seth and my interpreting (we're learning numbers in our Lao classes), we figured out that it was 2,000kip ($.25) for three darts. We then asked how much it would be to win the biggest animal.  We couldn't understand her response to this answer... it sounded like she said "30,000 kip" ($5), but we thought we heard incorrectly. 

Anyway, Nick threw the darts (and got 3 of 3). 

When we excitedly asked how many more darts he had to throw to get the big blue stuffed thing, the girl again said 30,000kip. 

At which point we figured that they were charging people to throw darts, and simultaneously selling stuffed animals at the same stall. 

So Nick won me a stuffed animal! (By throwing three darts and paying 30,000kip).

And then even more awesomely he carried it around for me all afternoon. 

We're not sure who the stuffed animal character is... we just call him Mr. Ripoff. 

He's stuffed with styrofoam peanuts.