Bussing to Udon Thani after class on Friday, we spent one night exploring "UD-Town" before catching another bus to Vang Vieng, a town inundated with tourists, about four hours north of Vientiane.  We rented motorbikes, explored caves and waterfalls, soaked up the insanely beautiful landscapes, and of course took advantage of Sakura Bar's free whiskey drinks from 7-8 each night. After a wild weekend in the mountain town, we returned to Vientiane to meet up with our classmates before embarking on a week long tour of the country, starting with prosthetic limb provider COPE in the capital city and ending in the south with a chic organic co-op coffee grower in Paxse. We toured ancient ruins at Vat Phou in Champasak and debated the ethical and moral issues that come with the mark of UNESCO World Heritage Site status. We saw roadside blacksmiths hammering knives out of scrap metal found from bombies (cluster munition bomblets) "left over" from the nine-year long Secret War that America waged against Laos during the Vietnam War-era. During the war, American forces dropped 270 million bombies on the small landlocked nation. That is the equivalent of a planeload of bombs dropped every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day, for 9 years.