My world walk blog - Laos #4

Just as well I'm not superstitious, I checked into a hotel near Phonxay and was given a strange room number, 666!

It a beautiful hotel and I paid way above and twice my usual budget. Let's just say, I wasn't happy about the place I stayed in the previous two nights. It was crawling with ants that even got up on my bed and even after I changed rooms it was the same, I'm easy to please, but hey not when I took a rest day.

Then a 27-kilometres day in which I walked some of it in the rain. It's the rainy season and to me, the Mekong river looked pretty high. Recently there was a flood disaster when walls of a dam under construction in the south-east of the country broke down. Dozens of people lost their lives and homes.

I was now in Bolixhamsai province. I walked past roadside hawkers who were etching out a meagre living by selling fruit and vegetables out of shanty constructions.

Despite severe poverty people still, have big smiles and families continued to come out to the road to greet me. Occasionally, I get offered some food but I always refuse it as I can afford my own food here. I always waved and smiled and then they smiled and waved and often laughed back. It seemed to make their day. I love people. It may seem to some people that what I'm doing makes me somewhat of a loner, far from it. I need my 'people drug.' 

 During the Vietnam war, America dropped an average of eights planeloads of bombs a minute over a period of nine years over Laos.

The Americans have also spent hundreds of millions of dollars on unexploded bomb (UXO - Unexploded object) cleanups. Laos is the most bombed country in world history. People are still being maimed and especially children who are attracted to unexploded devices which sometimes look like colourful toys. 

Why did America do this I wondered. Is Trump really the first crazy American president or will he be the first to make peace with North Korea? How many bombs will he drop? Yes, I know he is an idiot but most politicians are.