Loving Laos!

So I've been in Laos for about 2 days now and I am already loving it for so many reasons! First of all, as it was once under the control of the French there are bakeries everywhere selling delicious baguettes and pastries. I've kind of said screw it to my budget and waistline for good reason. Secondly, I've finally found the backpackers! I've already met more people than I did in all of Thailand, and many are traveling solo too. It's great to have some company. The captial I think has around 300 000 people, but its got a fairly relaxed feel to it. Things have been pretty easy so far, granted the tourist district is pretty set up for, well, tourists. The only thing I am not liking about this country is the heat - as hot as it was in Bangladesh with no ocean to jump in for relief.

I went to the Lao National History Museum yesterday - lots of old pottery, but it also goes through the struggles for indepence as this country was under control of the French for a long period, but the US were also in here as well in 70's I believe. My Lao history knowledge kind of sucks. ANyways, the captions for the displays were so strongly anti-American, it was very entertaining. For example, "The guns the Americans brought to Laos to kill innocent Laos people." or "The surrender of the Imperalist Americans and their puppets."

Today we went to Buddha park. We took a public bus which was packed with a door that slammed open and shut as it pleased. It was interesting as we really had no idea where we were supposed to get off and got a little worried when it started heading towards immigration into Thailand at the Friendship Bridge. But we got there ok and it was really neat. It's just a small park filled with huge Buddha statues. There were tonds of them and they were all different. There was also a big pot type thing that you could climb to the top of. I got a lot of neat pictures.

So tomorrow I am heading to Vang Vieng which is kind of the party town of Laos. I will be going tubing down a river stopping at bars along the way which should be a lot of fun. After that its jup to Luang Prabang which has some great markets so I can catch up on my souvenir shopping.