U.S. Reps. Brad Miller and David Price spent part of their summer vacation this week in a hotel in Liberia's capital city of Monrovia that lacked hot water but had exposed wiring, that smelled of gasoline and whose power blinked off occasionally through the night.

It was a change from the plush digs of Capitol Hill, Barb Barrett reports.

It also was a sobering reminder of the conditions in poor nations plagued by civil strife.

"We have just visited two of the poorest nations on the planet," Miller said Wednesday in an interview from Africa. "Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Both have been through horrific conflict."

Liberia had 14 years of civil war, and the Democratic Republic of Congo is emerging from a civil war that has killed more than 5 million people, said Miller, of Raleigh.

"These societies are not the slightest threat to us economically," he said. "Their poverty is a security threat to the United States. Failed societies and ungoverned areas are where extremism and terrorism really take hold."

Miller joined a Price-led congressional trip to the region to learn more about developing countries there and assist new democracies in strengthening their legislative branches. U.S. Rep. Mel Watt of Charlotte also was on the trip.

The delegation will be in Kenya, Malawi and Mauratania before returning to the United States. 

U.S. Rep. David Price is not an easy traveler.

The Chapel Hill Democrat is going on an 11-day trip during the upcoming recess along with other members of the House Democracy Assistance Commission. (U.S. Rep. Brad Miller is joining him.)

The Washington Post's Al Kamen, who likes to critique lawmakers' junkets, called the trip to such political hotspots as Liberia, Kenya and Congo "no fun."

"In addition to meetings with heads of state, there are endless conferences and meetings about budgeting, legislative research and other exciting topics," he writes, tongue in cheek.

Price, a former professor who is something of a troubled democracy buff, has also taken trips to Lebanon, Afghanistan, East Timor, Haiti and Colombia — hardly the kinds of places you see on a poster in a travel agent's office. 

On the other hand, Mongolia's been pretty quiet since Gengis Khan died.