In my last blog I said that, of the western countries, it was the French who had had the most impact on Laos. Actually this is not strictly true. It was the Americans – for all the wrong reasons.
During the Vietnam war, Laos remained officially neutral but that didn’t stop our American cousins. In an attempt to cut off supplies from north to South Vietnam, between 1964 and 1973 the US airforce dropped more than 2 million tons of awful cluster bombs during a staggering 580,000 bombing missions, mostly on defenceless Laotian civilians.
These nasty pieces of ordnance were, in fact, bombs that, prior to impact, ejected hundreds of explosive bomblets designed to kill personnel and destroy vehicles. It is estimated that more than 30,000 Laotian civilians were killed by these weapons during this conflict. However, as they were notoriously inefficient, about 80 million of the 270 million (yes, 270 million) bomblets dropped did not explode, only about 1% of which have been cleared so far. Thus there are millions of these active devices lying around in Laotian fields which can so easily be accidentally detonated by a farmers spade, someone’s hot cooking stove or just by being picked up and played with by an innocent child. It is estimated that, since the bombing stopped, a further 20,000 Laotians have been killed and many more injured by these horrible devices, 8,000 of whom were children. Truly shocking!
The COPE Centre in Vientiane is a rehabilitation hospital and prosthetic limb facility for those left maimed and injured by these orange like devices. Inside this place is a small museum full of graphic evidence of the horrors of what man can do to man. It’s a fairly gruesome environment but in a strange way uplifting as there is much evidence of human resistance to tragedy here.
The museum is only small but should be an absolute ‘must’ on everyone’s ‘to do’ list in Laos.
Although I have just spent a few days here and only in the capital, I get the feeling that this is a good place. I like the happy, smiling people.
and their laid back attitude to life.
I like the feeling of ‘space’ so absent in many other capital cities.
I like the signs with their quirky translations.
I like the architecture, not just of the temples.
and I like the money – amusingly called ‘Kip’ – as I’m a multi millionaire here!
This 50,000 Kip note is worth less than a fiver!
And what don’t I like? Actually, it’s nothing to do with Laos but can be heard anywhere in the world. When you are in a foreign land with little knowledge of the local lingo there is no temptation to listen, either accidentally or deliberately, to anyone else’s conversation. So when you do hear, like, someone else, like, talking your, like, language, it tends to, you know, like jar!!
I must be, like, getting old.
Phileas
thelasthurrahsite 