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Published: February 28th 2006
Hey I'm in Vang Vieng again....I might kayak back to Vientiane tomorrow because it's the only place with an ATM and I need some bucks to get me by until Cambodia. I've been hanging out with all kinds of interesting people and I've been sharing a room with a gal from Colorado named Erin here in Vang Vieng.
Anyways, in Phonsavon I had the craziest experience ever. I stayed at a guesthouse in the shittiest room so far, but it was cheap. The owner was an educated Lao man and he had some interesting things to say. He actually spent 3 years in a Lao jail for studying in France and writing about the 'Secret War' that went on in Laos during the Vietnam war. The U.S. government refused to admit that they ever dropped bombs on Laos when in fact they were dropping bombs here for ten years straight....200 million tons of bombs in total.
The organisation that the hotel owner studied with wrote letters to the US government asking questions about the bomb craters scarring the country and the unexploded ordinance still being found today. They replied that it was all from the first world war, when Japan occupied Laos. But obviously the unexploded bombs found were newer than bombs used in WW1. Then they tried to say that they had to dump the bombs if a mission was not completed because it was too dangerous to land at base in Thailand with bombs still on the planes. Later they admitted to dropping bombs on Laos, but said they were directed at the North Vietnamese who were transpoting supplies on the Ho Chi Minh trail.
Then a civil war started in Laos because the CIA was buying large amounts of opium from the willing farmers who were sent to work in camps. The rest of the country was being bombed, and they thought the ones who worked in the camps were traitors. The hotel owner's father and grandfather both worked in a camp but they can't talk about it. He said when his father came out of the camp he was strange, and he could not get the story out about what went on there.
Many villagers had to flee and live for years in caves, with no food to eat because their rice fields were being pummeled with bombs daily. I booked a tour with some other people at the hotel to go see some bomb craters and a village they call "Bomb Village" (our guide was from the village) because it was so badly destroyed. We went to see some craters and the biggest one, caused over 30 years ago by a 2-ton bomb was about as big as Weyburn's outdoor swimming pool. I can't imagine being around when one of those blew off. Also there were some big craters caused by cluster bombs, which are big bombs that open up in mid air and release a barrage of smaller (about tennis ball sized) bombs that spread out and are meant to take out people. There were still a couple unexploded cluster bombs near the craters so we had to watch our step. One small move could set them off.
Then we went to Bomb Village. It was a really neat farming village. The houses were up on stilts, and the stilts were made out of old bomb casings. The villagers had so much steel from bomb casings that they had steel to make tools and lanterns and peices for their buildings. But our guide had heard of a boy in the village dying from an accident the day before. When we got there he heard the whole story.
The mother and grandmother of the boy were weeping as they told the guide. There were 3 young boys playing in the village. They had found a cluster bomb and did not know that it was dangerous. The bomb had been there for over 30 years, with people unsuspectingly walking right past it all that time. Maybe the kids thought it was a ball or something. It blew off, instantly killing all 3 boys. Two of them were so badly dismembered that they had to be scraped together and buried instantly. The third boy was being prepared for his burial that night. The mother begged us to go see the boy. She wanted us to see what still happens to people in Laos every day. We were the people's only chance to be heard beacause here it is illegal to talk about it. They hoped we would tell everyone we know.
And now us tourists were feeling really awkward, like maybe we shouldn't be there at a time like this. But the people all came up and shook our hands and told us how happy they were that we were there. A journalist from England named Rosemary was along with us that day and she said she would go see the boy. So we all did. He was suspended on a hanging bamboo bed in a shack at the edge of the village. There were villagers all around and they warmly welcomed us. An old woman waas singing to the boy, who was wrapped in a blanket. She pulled back the blanket for us and I saw the most horrible thing I ever witnessed. The boy was pale and his face was scarred. There were no eyes left in his eye sockets, just empty holes where eyes should be. It was hard to look at and most of us had to leave.
The head of the village, our guide's uncle, showed us the spot where the boys had found the bomb, right in the center of the village. There were holes in the surrounding shacks from the peices of shrapnel that were sent in all directions at 2200 ft/sec.
It's strange how the night before I was learning from the hotel owner about this secret war, and how there were so many bombs dropped in
Laos, and then the next day I see how it is still affecting the people 3 decades later. Pretty sad, really.
The villagers said they would be honored if we would stay for a drink of Lao Lao (homemade rice whiskey). We sat around in a circle and the head of the village wanted us to have a drink for each dead boy. So we went around the circle and introduced ourselves and then drank 2 shots for each boy. The villagers started playing instruments and beating a drum and they were so happy that Rosemary the journalist was going to tell their story. Then they all wanted hugs and we left to go on a waterfall trek and the Plain of Jars (which I should be putting some pictures on eventually). Wow, that day was something that maybe doesn't sound like much but it was an incredible experience that I'll never forget.
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Jerkie
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wow scottie. that was incredible i was almost in tears by the end.