Day 17 - Gold Temples and Fake Legs

Since we didn't have to much to do today we decided to sleep in and take the morning easy. I had some scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast at the hostel. Around 1030 we left and headed for Patuxai (this big arch in the center of town). It was about a mile away from the hostel so it was a little bit of a walk. The temperature was awesome 80's all day and really sunny! After maybe 20 minutes of walking we got to the arch. It was huge!

-At the arch

We were able to climb up to the top of the arch for like 50 cents, which gave us a pretty cool view of the city. 

-View from the arch

After hanging around for 15 minutes or so we went back down and headed farther north of the city to this huge golden temple called Pha That Luang, the temple is the national symbol and most important temple in the country. 

It was pretty cool looking but you couldn't go in it which was kinda lame. We walked around it for a few minutes and then headed back towards the city to our next destination, COPE, a place where they make fake legs for people who lost their limbs. 

As I mentioned in an earlier post Laos is the most bombed country in the world. During the Vietnam war era the US had hundreds of bombing runs over the country. Many of these bombs failed to detonate and became buried in the Laotion countryside. Still to this day many Lao people are accidentally serting of these bombs while farming. This has caused a high number of people needing prosthetic limbs. 

-Me and a bunch of fake legs

The mueseum was really interesting, and it was sad to see the long lasting effects of the war. 

After the mueseum we walked back toward our hostel in search of ray's grill, it was the number one rated restaurant on tripadvisor so we figured we'd give it a shot. The place was hidden and once we finally found it they were closed on Saturdays! We ended up going to a place close by, I had lasagna which was a nice change of pace from all the Asian food I had been eating.

After lunch we went back to the hostel to rest. We walked over 6 miles around the city in the heat so we were exhausted! We stayed in and looked up so activities for the rest of our trip and finally headed out for dinner. On the way to the restaurant we passed a pagani zonda (didn't get a pic sadly) there have only been 206 of them made since 1999! Extremely rare car and also extremely expensive! (Upwards of $1 million). We searched for the restaurant for a while with no luck so we decided to try a random place that was pretty crowded. I had the beef hot pot (fondue esque) and it was delicious!

After dinner we stopped at a highly rated fruit shake place. I had mango and passion fruit, it had a very strong flavor and was really good! We walked back to the hostel with our shakes and got ready for bed. Tomorrow we leave for Cambodia in the morning! Sad to say goodbye to such a cool country but excited to see what Cambodia has to offer!