Helping Lao Children to Read

Just received an email newsletter from Big Brother Mouse. No, it isn't a relative of Disney's Mickey or Minnie.

Big Brother Mouse is an organization based in Luang Prabang, Laos that publishes children's books in Lao. Something that we all take for granted is not the case in Laos. There are very few children's books written or translated into Lao. And it is not as simple as translating a children's book into Lao from English, French, etc. The cultural differences are so huge that the translation would be meaningless to the Lao child.

Organizations like the U.S. State Department pride themselves over building and stocking libraries in countries like Laos, but no one ever goes there to read the books because they are written in English. A few NGOs such as Room to Read are making modest inroads into Laos and neighboring countries to improve the literacy of school children.

We visited the office of Big Brother Mouse in Luang Prabang when we were in Laos last November. An American helped create the company and helps to operate it today, but in Laos it must be owned and managed by Lao personnel. Remember, this is still a communist country with all the associated bureaucratic laws and restrictions.

We made a donation to conduct a book party in a village school where they gave each child a book of their own. In most cases, it is the first book a child or anyone in their family has ever owned.

Photos from the book party we sponsored on Saturday, January 5, 2008 in the village of Ban Huaiphai. More than 195 books were handed out.

This is an enormously large scale problem - there are tens of thousands of villages throughout Laos, many of them very difficult to access.

If you are interested to learn more and to make a donation (sorry, it may not be tax deductible because this is a for-profit company, not a NGO), click on the following link and check out their website at BigBrotherMouse.

Photos from Luang Prabang

Here is a slideshow of some of the photos we took in and around Luang Prabang, Laos in November 2007:

Trying to be Steven Spielberg

We're starting to go thru the hundreds of photos and many minutes of video we took on our trip to Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. We will put photo slideshows on the blog and in the right-hand sidebar. Videos will be uploaded to YouTube and we'll embed some of them in the blog.

Here is one short video we shot at Tad Kouang Si waterfall outside of Luang Prabang. It is one of our guides, Nathan, reliving his youth and swinging off a rope into a pool by the waterfall. No exotic SE Asian culture in this - just having fun.



Here is a short video we took on our last morning in Luang Prabang, Laos. We got up before dawn to watch the procession of Buddhist monks walking thru town gathering alms (their meal for the day). The women in our group participated in the ritual by joining in and distributing food to the monks. It wasn't all rice - Caren said their baskets had cookies, chocolate bars, snack foods, meat, fruit, and several types of rice.

They Found Caren's Luggage!!!!!

It is now midday on the last day of our bicycle trip. We've check out of our hotel in Luang Prabang and are awaiting our flight back to Bangkok for our final dinner with the trip group.

A few minutes ago we got a phone call. Caren's luggage just showed up at the Chiang Mai airport in Thailand. Hooray!!! We have no idea where it has been for the past eight days, but it should be in our hotel room in Bangkok by the time we arrive this evening.

Caren will now have a lot of clean clothes for our four days in Cambodia. Just when she was getting used to living like a Thai in flip flops, T-shirts, Thai fisherman's pants, and sarong skirts.

As we said kiddingly to our guides, they are now going to get a tip. Until now, we told them "no luggage, no tip." Seriously, they were great guides and we will miss seeing them. We definitely want to take another biking trip with them to India next November - a fun-loving 30-something American from Connecticut (Caren's thinks he does a great imitation of Borat) and a 30-something Canadian Jewish woman who lives in Poland and speaks fluent, Thai, Lao, and Japanese (go figure).

On to Bangkok. More shopping and another blog update later.

Learning to Live on P.D.R. Time

Laos is one of the five remaining communist countries along with China, North Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam. The country's official name is the Lao People's Democratic Republic (or PDR). The popular joke here is that everything runs on PDR time (Please Don't Rush). It is true. Things happen when they happen - no one is in a big rush. And it is a typical communist bureaucracy - every piece of paperwork must be filled out correctly, or else. Some people's entire job is making sure the paperwork is correct.

We got up VERY early this morning and went into Luang Prabang to see the procession of monks and everyone giving food "alms" to them. Several of the people in our group, including Caren, lined up to give them alms. It is a very Buddhist thing for those of you that have not traveled to SE Asia.

Afterwards, we visited the local food market where we saw all kinds of stuff that looked a bit strange, but that we have actually come to enjoy eating (except for the bugs, animal hoofs, and grilled eel). There is a Lao confection that tastes exactly the same as Cracker Jack and the most delicious small, soft coconut cookies that are poached like an egg.

Then we took about a one hour boat ride up the Mekong River to visit a famous park with a beautiful waterfall. We egged on one of our tour guides to leap off a rope swing and take a dip in one of the pools created by the falls. Surprisingly to us, he did it. Nathan is a great sport. Video to come.

We also saw one of the few remaining Asian tigers in a small animal sanctuary along with a group of Laotian Black Bears.

Then we jumped on our bicycles for our last "official" bicycle ride in Laos. We rode for 31 km (about 18 miles) back to Luang Prabang and right to our restaurant for lunch. We had a steep 1 km hill about halfway thru the ride, but otherwise we covered great rolling terrain thru the countryside. We passed a lot of small villages with kids that waved to us. As we got closer to Luang Prabang, we passed schools just letting out for the day, crossed the bridge into town, and rode thru the entire town (really neat).

Last night and after lunch today, we did some heavy duty shopping. The extra suitcases we brought along are going to be filled. The Lao textiles are gorgeous (my metrosexual self coming thru).

Tonight is our final dinner in Laos. We are eating French cuisine at the restaurant here in the hotel. This is a fabulous hotel - 32 rooms, very quiet, very friendly and prompt service, and a superb bar. It has been managed by Orient-Express for about a year now and it is fully booked 100% of the time. I spoke with the GM the other day and he has to reject 2 reservation requests for every 1 he can confirm.

Tomorrow AM we are doing a short "nonofficial" bike ride, visiting an village that B&R helps to support, and flying to Bangkok for our final dinner. Stay tuned.

Check out some of today's photos:

Laos Photos

Luang Prabang - Going back in time

We have arrived in Laos. What a difference from Thailand! It is soooo quiet and laid back here compared to the hustle and bustle of Chiang Mai and Bangkok.

Laos has been conquered or occupied by a lot of countries over the years - Burma, Northern Thailand (Lanna Kingdom), Siamese, Khmer (Cambodia), Chinese, French, U.S., and Vietnamese. There are only six million people in the country and they have few industries other than agriculture and a little tourism and mining.

The travel editor for the NY Times must eavesdrop on our travel plans. Last year, just before our trip to Cambodia, the newspaper had a big article about travel to Siem Reap. On Sunday, November 4, the following article was published about the hotel we are staying in here in Luang Prabang:

La Residence Phou Vao

A lot has happened since our last post. We flew over from Chiang Mai on Monday afternoon after some heavy duty shopping in the morning. We found a small street with several really nice boutiques. Caren checked off the names for a lot of gifts she needed to purchase.

We have really gotten frustrated with Caren's lost luggage. Our tour guides have been raising hell with Thai Airways, but we still have no bag. Our patience ran out earlier today and we blew up over the situation. We are certain that anyone else other than us would have left the trip and headed home by now. But we are pretty easy going and having a great time.

This AM we did our first bike ride in Laos - about 18 miles from the hotel out towards the junction of the Ou and Mekong Rivers. Rolling terrain on a very well paved 2 lane highway with little traffic other than a few trucks and some motorbikes.

We then jumped into a couple of long boats and motored down river to the Pak Ou caves. In the caves are over 4,000 buddha statues. It's a mini version of the Pindaya caves in Burma that we visited in 2004.

Lunch consisted of a spread of traditional Lao dishes and bottles of BeerLao, the only beer you can buy in Laos. It's a national monopoly - remember, this is a communist country. We continually joke with ourselves that Sheriff John would never eat any of these dishes.

We visited the Lao National Museum which consisted of a lot of antiques from the deposed monarchy.

Dinner last night was at an outdoor pavilion with the meal catered by the hotel chef. We were entertained before and during dinner by young girls and musicians from the Lao Cultural Heritage Center. We had a long talk with the woman that runs the center - she spent 2 years living in Honolulu and we visited her house today. Definitely a charity worth donating to - they are working hard to retain old Lao cultural traditions - music, dance, and art.

We took a lot of photos and video, but we don't have time to upload them to the blog right now. Perhaps tomorrow or when we get back to Bangkok.

We're into Using Google Maps Instead of AAA or
Rand-McNally

Here is a Google Map that lays out our trip route. Click on the link and it should open a new broswer window.

You may need to move around the map a bit (just click and drag your mouse) and zoom a bit. Or click on any of the cities listed in the left column of the map page. Click on any placemark to see when/where we will be. Play around with the map. We'll embellish it with photos, etc. as we travel:

Bicycling Expedition Trip

Here is the current weather in Bangkok (our arrival city):

Heading off on another bicycling adventure

Sunday night, we're departing for Southeast Asia and another (hopefully) exciting bicycling expedition. This time we'll be bicycling in Northern Thailand and Laos. After the bicycle trip, we plan on hopping over to Cambodia for four more days to see the sights and visit with our Cambodian friends.

The flight from LAX to Bangkok's new international airport is going to be a long one. It's nonstop on Thai Airways. Scheduled flight time in 17 hours and 30 minutes. That's a lot of Sudoku puzzles, iPod music, reading, inflight movies, airplane meals, and maybe some sleep.

Google Map for Flight

There are supposed to be eleven travelers on this trip. We meet them in Bangkok.

The rainy season is just ending over there so we expect hot and humid weather. At least we know to pack light clothing. Hopefully, this won't be another three shower a day trip like we experienced in Vietnam last year.