Taking the waters in Laos’ jungle

Mission VIEJO reader Chad Briggs was touring Laos in April when he came upon a picturesque part of a jungle preserve north of Vientiane, the capital. “I actually was just taking pictures of the waterfall when these monks waded in,” Briggs says, adding that the temperature had soared above 100 degrees. Briggs’ trip also included Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, where translating Celsius readings into Fahrenheit resulted in disbelief. “I did a triple-check of the conversion,” he says. The temperature, as confirmed by Briggs’ tour guide: 113.