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"

Patuxai

One of Vientiane's most recognizable tourist "attractions" (bless the poor soul who travels all the way to Vientiane to see this monument) is Patuxai. It looks a lot like the "Arc de Triomphe" in Paris, probably on purpose. "Patuxai" literally means the "Gate of Victory" (Patu = door or gateway, xai = victory). It's made out of concrete donated by the American government, which was supposed to be used to built a runway in Vientiane. (read more on Wikipedia) The Lao government chose to built Patuxai instead. It is, to this day, unfinished. 

Family standing outside (Christmas day tourism!)

Love Lao signs/ translations. This one includes: "From a closer distance, it appears even less impressive, like a monster of concrete."

The entrance to the stairwell to climb Patuxai has a ticket booth. Tickets are 3,000kip ($.40) a person, and to get to the top is 7 flights of fairly easy stairs. 

The view from the top is pretty neat- it would probably be better without so much smog. It's December and we need rain. 

This is the view going downtown (along Lan Xang, one of the biggest streets in Vientiane, designed a bit like the Champs Elysee in Paris) (lot of Paris imitating going on...)

Nick didn't get the Zoolander face memo

Overall it's a quick and cheap trip. There aren't a lot of tourist destinations in Vientiane, but this one was pretty fun. 

Visit (Beautiful) North Korea...

So North Korea decided to open itself up to tourists - this has been widely discussed Stateside, particularly because of the arrest of American Merrill Newman, an 85-year-old Korean War veteran.

Laos and North Korea are two of six (I think?) communist countries in the world so it's not a huge surprise that North Korea is advertising in Laos. One Lao coworker sent us all the advertisement that he received through Facebook, which is a flight deal to North Korea (through China?). While North Korea isn't high on my list of travel destinations, it sounds like a couple people from the office are planning trips...

I don't read Lao, but I gathered from the ad that you travel on the 27th or 28th of December and the flights are 7,500,000kip (about $930).