Golf and cluster bombs
We were staying in Phonsavan at the Kong Keo guest-house, which is away from the main street, on one end of the old town airstrip.
The garden is full of lamps and flower boxes made out of bomb casings and a shed in the corner has an impressive collection of old armaments.
In the morning, while we ate our breakfast, we would watch local boys practicing to parallel park in a huge old Russian truck on the asphalt outside. Since private cars are almost unheard of in Laos, everyone learns to ride a motorbike or scooter at an early age, and you would only need a driving license to drive a bus or a truck - so that is what you learned to drive in.
Mr. Kong is crazy about golf, so there is a one-hole pitch and putt in the front garden. At night, sitting around the bonfire in the half-shell of a cluster-bomb, he told us how he got started in life after he randomly caught a rare butterfly for a Japanese collector that turned out to be worth $10,000. He had subsequently managed to find a scholarship to study in France and had traveled abroad at a time when the Laos government had only issued a few hundred passports. Most of the other locals we met during our visit had never left the province. He regaled us for a long time with stories of political intrigue, golf, his visits to jail, and his two previous marriages.
Laos has grown on me over the last two weeks. Initially, I was taken aback by the disorganisation and the sleepy pace of everything. It's true that the food and the general level of hygiene leave something to be desired, but ultimately I have been won over by the friendliness and the relaxed nature of the Laos people.
How pleasant to have a brief conversation with the post-mistress this morning about our travel plans while she worked out the postage for our package. Or to be invited to share dinner (however inedible) by our kind guest-house host.
This generosity of spirit towards westerners is doubly impressive when you consider that, in addition to the general poverty here, the lives of these people were horrendously affected by massive carpet bombing by the United States (because of the Viet Cong presence) during the Vietnam War. This bombing was conducted 'in secret', illegally, without the knowledge or authorization of the U.S. Congress (or the U.S. public). Since the objective was to undermine all support infrastructure for the Viet Cong, civilian communities were targeted in addition to military sites, and it was one of he heaviest bombardments in history - an average of 5000 missions per day between 1963 and 1970, dropping over 500lbs of explosive per man, woman and child in Laos.
Phonsavan was heavily hit. On a tour from our guest-house we met the uncle of our guide, who was wearing a worn old beret but still looked distinguished in his mid-70s. He told me in French about how they were bombed at first during the day and they would work the fields at night, and then the Americans dropped flares so they could continue bombing at night. They hid in caves or dug holes. He said his village was completely obliterated.
He had a 250lb bomb casing propping up his storefront and a shelf of disarmed cluster bombs next to his drinking glasses and the egg cartons.
The biggest fallout from the bombings was that as much as 30% of the explosives failed to detonate immediately, turning the country into a minefield and a living nightmare that continues 30 years after the bombs stopped falling.
We visited a field full of bomb craters and were shown an unexploded 'bombie' - a cluster bomblet the size of a baseball - that would send shards of metal in a 150 yard radius were it to detonate. These were released in clusters of 300 from a large shell casing that splits in half during its descent.
The presence of these and other unexploded ordinance across the country makes it very difficult for the Laos people to make full use of their land still today. We were told that only the villages and roads had been cleared methodically. In the last few decades, bombs in most working farmland have been found (with over 11,000 accidents), but as the population grows villagers are being tempted to cultivate new terrain, and accidents continue today.
We visited the home village of our guide, where they make the most of the bomb casings they have collected, turning them into structural supports in their houses, flower-boxes, BBQs, and reforging the metal into machetes and other metal implements.
Afterwards, we walked to a nearby waterfall for lunch with a couple of other villagers that wanted to practice their English, and we sat down to a traditional Laos picnic lunch of sticky rice and assorted vegetable and meat dishes, each in their own plastic bag (this is all finger food).
We ended the day with a visit to the nearby Plain of Jars.
Some of these are up to 4000 years old, and it's thought that they were used to hold the bodies of the dead while they decomposed, allowing the spirit time to leave the body and enter the spirit world (or next life), after which the remains were cremated and interred nearby.
I thought they looked quite cozy, especially the one with a lid.
The garden is full of lamps and flower boxes made out of bomb casings and a shed in the corner has an impressive collection of old armaments.
In the morning, while we ate our breakfast, we would watch local boys practicing to parallel park in a huge old Russian truck on the asphalt outside. Since private cars are almost unheard of in Laos, everyone learns to ride a motorbike or scooter at an early age, and you would only need a driving license to drive a bus or a truck - so that is what you learned to drive in.
Mr. Kong is crazy about golf, so there is a one-hole pitch and putt in the front garden. At night, sitting around the bonfire in the half-shell of a cluster-bomb, he told us how he got started in life after he randomly caught a rare butterfly for a Japanese collector that turned out to be worth $10,000. He had subsequently managed to find a scholarship to study in France and had traveled abroad at a time when the Laos government had only issued a few hundred passports. Most of the other locals we met during our visit had never left the province. He regaled us for a long time with stories of political intrigue, golf, his visits to jail, and his two previous marriages.
Laos has grown on me over the last two weeks. Initially, I was taken aback by the disorganisation and the sleepy pace of everything. It's true that the food and the general level of hygiene leave something to be desired, but ultimately I have been won over by the friendliness and the relaxed nature of the Laos people.
How pleasant to have a brief conversation with the post-mistress this morning about our travel plans while she worked out the postage for our package. Or to be invited to share dinner (however inedible) by our kind guest-house host.
This generosity of spirit towards westerners is doubly impressive when you consider that, in addition to the general poverty here, the lives of these people were horrendously affected by massive carpet bombing by the United States (because of the Viet Cong presence) during the Vietnam War. This bombing was conducted 'in secret', illegally, without the knowledge or authorization of the U.S. Congress (or the U.S. public). Since the objective was to undermine all support infrastructure for the Viet Cong, civilian communities were targeted in addition to military sites, and it was one of he heaviest bombardments in history - an average of 5000 missions per day between 1963 and 1970, dropping over 500lbs of explosive per man, woman and child in Laos.
Phonsavan was heavily hit. On a tour from our guest-house we met the uncle of our guide, who was wearing a worn old beret but still looked distinguished in his mid-70s. He told me in French about how they were bombed at first during the day and they would work the fields at night, and then the Americans dropped flares so they could continue bombing at night. They hid in caves or dug holes. He said his village was completely obliterated.
He had a 250lb bomb casing propping up his storefront and a shelf of disarmed cluster bombs next to his drinking glasses and the egg cartons.
The biggest fallout from the bombings was that as much as 30% of the explosives failed to detonate immediately, turning the country into a minefield and a living nightmare that continues 30 years after the bombs stopped falling.
We visited a field full of bomb craters and were shown an unexploded 'bombie' - a cluster bomblet the size of a baseball - that would send shards of metal in a 150 yard radius were it to detonate. These were released in clusters of 300 from a large shell casing that splits in half during its descent.
The presence of these and other unexploded ordinance across the country makes it very difficult for the Laos people to make full use of their land still today. We were told that only the villages and roads had been cleared methodically. In the last few decades, bombs in most working farmland have been found (with over 11,000 accidents), but as the population grows villagers are being tempted to cultivate new terrain, and accidents continue today.
We visited the home village of our guide, where they make the most of the bomb casings they have collected, turning them into structural supports in their houses, flower-boxes, BBQs, and reforging the metal into machetes and other metal implements.
Afterwards, we walked to a nearby waterfall for lunch with a couple of other villagers that wanted to practice their English, and we sat down to a traditional Laos picnic lunch of sticky rice and assorted vegetable and meat dishes, each in their own plastic bag (this is all finger food).
We ended the day with a visit to the nearby Plain of Jars.
Some of these are up to 4000 years old, and it's thought that they were used to hold the bodies of the dead while they decomposed, allowing the spirit time to leave the body and enter the spirit world (or next life), after which the remains were cremated and interred nearby.
I thought they looked quite cozy, especially the one with a lid.
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