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Published: August 8th 2007
Mmmmmmmm.....
A nice cold bag of sugar cane juicePhonsavan looked like paradise after we stumbled off the bus. There was still a shortage of sidewalks, people were still clearing their throats to spit into the streets, and there was apparently a surplus on the dust crop this year. But people spoke English! There were restaurants open everywhere! People were friendly again (or at least willing to try and help us out)! We were ecstatic at having a sense of comfort again, and we celebrated by eating a pizza with meat sauce all over it. Our smiles were to fade soon though, as Phonsavan would reveal it's own dark secrets in the next few days.
The whole countryside was a testing field for the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War. In an effort to keep the Vietnamese soldiers and their communist influence out, the U.S. dropped the equivalent of one plane full of bombs, every eight minutes, 24-7, for 8 years. Going against signed agreements made at the U.N., this whole operation was led by the CIA and carried out with planes who were supposedly on their way to Vietnam. Since nothing was official, and everything denied, it came to be known as the "secret war". But it
UXO
"Bombie" in the fields was no secret to the people of Laos, who had the equivalent of 1 1/2 tons of explosives for every man, woman, and child in the country dropped on them for no explained reason other than, it was "too dangerous for the U.S. pilots to land with their full payloads". The end result of this enormous bombing effort (more bombs dropped here than on Europe during WWII!) was that 1/3rd of them lay scattered around the Eastern half of Laos unexploded, many with no known method of being dismantled (a lot of the bombs were experimental). A popular American company, Honeywell, had (and still does) a particularly vicious product on the military market. Anti-personnel bombs, or "bombies", are softball size balls which explode upon contact to send it's shell of ball bearings flying through the air at 2,000 ft. per second. A large bomb of these would be dropped from above, split in half to release the hundreds of bombies which would need to rotate 4-6 times in order to activate, and then kill anyone unlucky enough to catch just one of the thousands of ball bearings to the head. The problem with this was many planes dropped the bombs
The MAG Office
Recovered items too low to the ground, not allowing enough time for the "bombies" to spin. So there they sit; up in trees, on the roofs of schools, embedded in farmland. Waiting for some kid to pick it up and throw it to his friend, or a farmer to hit it with his hoe. 30 years later and 100 people are still maimed or killed every month, mostly children.
At least someone is trying to help. The Mines Advisory Group (MAG) had an office that was located right next door to the place where we had eaten our pizza (ironically, the pizza joint was called "Craters". Owned by an ex-MAG specialist who had gotten fed up with paperwork). MAG is a group of British explosives experts who came over to train villagers and government workers in how to deactivate the bombs or explode them safely. Laos now has its own de-mining group, funded by the U.N., and is working to make the villages safer. The process is slow, and there are a lot of bombs, so everyone happily estimates that things should be back to normal in the next hundred years or so. Maybe.
As we watched a Canadian documentary
about all this that first night at the Kong Keo guest house, the pictures of maimed children and exploding villages smashed home the reality of the tragedy I was a tourist to. It was no longer some long-ago story I had only read about in books. This town of Phonsavan had received a major piece of the U.S. onslaught, and would be paying for it for the next century. Suz and I sat on a pillow in a room full of Europeans who were just shaking their heads and murmuring to each other. I felt nauseous and completely embarrassed to be an American.
We set out on a tour of all that Phonsavan had to offer. We visited a hillside where I stood in a 1-ton bomb crater that would have taken a backhoe days to dig out. We got to see two "bombies", still unexploded, that lay in the grass next to a marked off field a farmer was waiting to have cleared by the Lao UXO team. We saw the amazing "Plain of Jars", 3 sites filled with 2500 year old giant stone vases that were each carved from a single boulder by a mysterious ancient culture
The Plain of Jars
Suz and the largest jar (of course, these archaeological wonders are riddled with 500 lb. bomb craters, many jars having been destroyed). As a highlight of the trip, our guide TeeVee (his real name) took us to his Hmong village where we saw fences, house posts, and knives made from bomb casings. He invited us into his dirt floor family house, gave us each the traditional 2 shots of Lao-Lao (rice whiskey), and shared some of the family's unroasted peanut harvest. The house was about as basic as it gets with a fire-pit inside to cook with, one bedroom for all the family members to sleep in, and made entirely out of woven bamboo and palm leaves. We sat in a circle of small plastic chairs, surrounded by bags of flour, kitchen odds and ends, and a few tools. It was what was needed to get by and nothing more.
We bantered for a bit, until that all-too-common lack of conversation moment hit us. Luckily family members had arrived home from school or work, and the matriarch soon after. They were all catching up for a moment, and then Mom sat down and focused herself on TeeVee. She addressed him wearily, speaking for many
TeeVee's Kitchen
His Hmong village house minutes at a time, and I could tell it was something about the family, most likely their financial woes. TeeVee stared at the floor, answering in single words, suddenly looking very tired himself. He was the oldest son of the family, perhaps it was up to him to be providing for the education of his siblings and the welfare of his mother? TeeVee worked as a guide at the guest house, and as an all around gopher. He took orders for food, brought it to the table, took laundry back to the wash, and set up the TV for movies. He slept underneath a mosquito net by the bar at night, and was always looking very worn out in the mornings. I suspect that Mr. Kong treated him like shit, for he would try to entertain us with degrading jokes about his own people, probably taught to him by the sly and skinny owner. TeeVee wanted desperately to have fun and be accepted by the foreigners. He lacked charisma and had a goofy awkwardness about him that was only intensified by his high-pitched laugh. I believe he was learning English not so much to be better at his work, but
Sleeping With the Bombs
A fence at the Hmong village to be more able to joke with the falang.
Still, there was a sincerity about him that made you happy to see him. In a world full of business scams and con-artists, it's the honest guy you want to hang out with. Or at least the guy too innocent to rip you off. TeeVee was both of these.
The lecture from Mom ends abruptly and TeeVee suddenly addresses us:
"My mother cook one pig yesterday. We take some for waterfall."
But he still looks tired, and now Mom is staring at the ground in silence. I feel guilty and embarrassed sitting in this house, on this small plastic chair on the dirt floor. We have once again been presented gifts, and I've brought nothing in gratitude. TeeVee's smirking brother presents us with a plastic bag (he's been watching the girls the whole time), and after many khop jai lai lais we're off again to find our driver who's been patiently chain smoking and awaiting our return.
We drive off to the end of a dead-end road, exit the SUV, and walk single file down a path through the forest to our lunch stop. The path
Hillside
On the way to the hidden waterfall becomes quite steep at times, and the driver and TeeVee walk patiently behind us as we stumble our way down. The tree canopy breaks open occasionally, allowing us amazing views of the forested mountains and valleys below. We walk for what seems like an eternity, until the ever-growing sound of rushing water finally reveals itself into the form of a beautifully cascading waterfall, perched high at the point where two mountains meet, and only visible from this spot.
Our group unpacks a lunch we had picked up from the market early that morning: fried bananas; fried dough; spring rolls filled with herbs and vermicelli; a whole buffet of fresh fruit; coconut dumplings; and of course, TeeVee's mother's pork. TeeVee has picked a bunch of large leaves from the thick foliage, and lays them down on the jungle floor as our table. We squat on the ground, each of us tearing into the feast only as quickly as one of us can offer it to another. Finally stuffed and exhausted, we sit by the stream and are mesmerized by the waterfall. Needing to break the spell, I decide to take a swim. Throwing all concerns of sanitation aside (the river
above flows past the village), I scramble over rocks and plunge myself into the deep pool under the main falls. The action has it's desired effect, and now I've not only snapped awake but it feels like my entire chest is caving in. It's so cold! My adrenaline is really pumping from the excitement of the rushing water and I only last a few seconds before I climb back out. Taking in all of my surroundings one last time, I dry off and join the group for our trek away from paradise.
On our way back up we pass a young couple carrying a basket down to the waterfall.
"These two people just for getting marry," TeeVee explains, "Now they have time together. Do everything together. They fish, wash clothes, everything. This is how they can knowing each other."
The couple looks very happy as they shoot each other with looks and smiles all the way down the path. I look at Suz and she gives me a little knowing smile. Funny how the Western world works the other way around. Here you are with your family until one day you are picked out and simply left
Cramped Bathroom
The Kong-Keo in Phonsavan to adjust to building a family. In our complicated lifestyle you prepare for marriage your whole life. Kissing on the playground, relationships in high school, moving in together, and then (if everything goes well) getting married. Why, with all that practice and working to get it right, do so many of our marriages end in failure?
We drop TeeVee off at his English class on the way back to the Kong Keo. Once arriving, we tip our driver and drink a couple of Beerlaos waiting for TeeVee to get back so that we can thank him as well. He arrives hours later looking haggard but still smiling ("I have test today, but I do OK."), and he is immediately taken from us by the other staff, sent to do trivial jobs so that they can sit around and bullshit with the falangs. It was the last time we saw him. All his generosity, all his apologizing for his English, all his insistance that he open the car doors for us, all of the guilt he took at home......for nothing. Suz and I paid $12 each for our trip that day, and TeeVee didn't see a dime. It's a thought
What To Do?
Suz contemplates another bite of cheese that still makes me want to run back to Phonsavan and ask for his forgiveness. Repay him in some way. Help improve his life.
The agonizing bus ride back to Vientiene was made no easier by the fact that we had a VIP bus. There was a lot more room, air-con, and more comfy seats, but it didn't help with the unrelenting twists and turns of the mountain road. I was forced to stare at the horizon constantly, watching plastic bags of vomit fly by every few minutes from the similarly afflicted Laos passengers in the front. In an added twist of cruelty, the TV over the drivers head flicked on and began showing Laos karaoke videos, each with the lyrics printed slowly on the bottom to accompany the tremendously loud music. As I tried to drown it out with the iPod, I found myself continuously drawn to the images of overly dramatic teens who were lamenting over not being able to spend time with their sappy boyfriends who called them all the time on their cell phones. Something in me snapped, and I have since never been able to hear the word "karaoke" without dreaming up scenes of
Hmong New Year
Making a new knife from bomb scrap to sacrifice a pig in celebration horrific violence.
So. Back in Vientiene and the French food and wine. Foie gras, braised lamb shank with lentils, and that heavenly dairy product which always calls my name. I even enjoyed a glass of port. It would make sense to feel guilty for our extravagance after our trip through the troubled parts of this beautiful country. But with the lingering creaminess of Camenbert still coating my tongue, I feel it very hard not to feel happy about leaving it behind.
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toddly
non-member comment
ants...
okay. the title included "ants". give me ants. i want to hear you were eating som tam and gai yang and it was so good you didn't realize untill it was too late that your whole leg was covered with red ants. ants i say!