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May 31. Worst War crimes ever?
Cornflakes and coffee, and it's already ten. Lazy bastards, you think. Where's the early morning gymnastics, the 2-mile-walk, the 150 pushups and the rigor-vigor?


Anyway, we visit COPE today and have a good look at the museum that displays handmade prostheses, we are talking about wooden leg, cast iron pparts nailed together with ...
May 30. Volleyball in rural Laos.
It is so nice to have 100cc of boiling hot metal shafts between my legs, that I decide to rent a motorbike in the afternoon and tour around Vientiane. We take the main highway north (direction Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang) with the option of taking a dirttrack to a beautiful waterfall. An option that ...
May 29. Borrowing vintage bike.
Shaun, a friendly Australian guy living here offers us his little vintage motorbike in the morning, and we gladly accept that enhancement of our mobility.

We will be taking that green bike to the friendship bridge and back today. Not that there's much to see - the friendship bridge is essentialy a concrete corridor ...
May 28. What is ten dollars?
We have a brunch with a German lady, Dagmar, who tells us her compelling story: she is editing and publishing an autobiographical book about a Lao monk. It's what keeps her here, and what keeps us listening. It is really nice and I hope she will publish the book.

I pick up my Vietnamese ...
May 27. COPE-ing with UXOs
Our arrival in Vientiane should be different than Vientiane, I think, and stick obstinately to my idee fixe when we arrive at the bus station. NO tuktuk, we are FINE, we know our way around. We walk a couple of miles and indeed, reach central Vientiane and lose about an hour. We make ourselves comfortable ...
May 26. A very nice man.. not!
Rather than niceness, it are the events of flat bluntness that stick to a traveler's memory. I have this experience this morning at "bigbrothermouse". This is a small ngo aiming to increase literacy in rural Laos by publishing and distributing bilingual children's books. It is and remains a wonderful concept, and so we visit their ...
May 25. Hey. Pssst. Motorbike?
Countless curves await us on the eight-hour busride to Luang Prabang. The scenery is pretty as we expected, and makes up for our diet of dry cookies and sodas. I remember having a can of beer during the break, but apart from that, don't expect any events from the busride.
Arriving at Luang Prabang comes ...
May 24. Of motorbikes and hospitals.
We almost miss our morning ride to Namtha. I have the bus tickets and the bus (there are only a few daily) stops at Bryan and Leila's house early. We rush to the streets and take our seats in the crammed minibus. Quick handshakes and best-of-luck constitute our goodbye to these wonderful people. I want ...
May 23. Easy bashing German state aid.
We have a delicious noodle soup for breakfast in a place that looks like what you would expect of a Lao eatery: the wooden terrace was built in the field, and farmers are ploughing in sight. This valley has always played an important cultural role as many different hilltribes interact here. Even today, local schoolchildren ...