Laos: The Unpleasantness

I've made these pictures extra large so you can see all the gory details. For those of you who might vomit at the sight of bloody pig parts, please skip this post.

Unpleasantness #1: Roosters. Here is the view from my hotel room window. Wherever there are chickens, there will be at least one rooster. I was lucky enough to have 2 right outside my window! You might think that roosters start crowing at sunrise. But that is not true. They start crowing well before sunrise. Perhaps as early as 3 am. They like to crow loudly every 2 or 3 minutes from some disgustingly early hour until the time you finally decide to get out of bed. Then they stop. (You don't need an alarm clock if you travel to Laos.)

Unpleasantness #2: Nasty animal parts. As if I don't get enough of this in Okinawa. I visited an outdoor market in Laos. In the first picture, you can see pig feet and pig faces. If you look closely, you can see the teeth. In the second picture, the green bag is full of water buffalo bile. The folks in Laos use this to tenderize their meat. Don't ask me what the rest of the stuff is. Especially the large tan thing that looks kind of like a brain. But you can use your imagination.