Laos

Once again this posting is from a bunch of different sessions lasting over a week. It may be hard to follow, but you should get the idea!

What a whirlwind of crazy times we have had since being in Laos.

After crossing over from Thailand things changed quite a bit; it seemed poorer, more laid back, there was no internet (for the first 7-8 days), and much less tourist infrastructure in general. This was what we were hoping for (at least the laid back, less touristy part of it). We spent over a week in the north of the country, an area just getting used to the idea of tourism. We are talking about a country that only opened to tourism in 1989, and an area that is very hard to travel to. **wrote that about a week ago, since then we are surrounded by dumb tourists. The longer we travel the more we dislike most of the other travelers. They are disrespectful to the locals/ local culture, loud, abrasive, drink a lot, and wear far too many beer tee-shirts and Diesel and Von Dutch knock-offs. They do stuff like walk into a monasrty wearing hot pants and a tube top while cuddling with their boyfriends. But, then there also lots of people that renew your faith in humanity and inspire you to live life to its fullest. Now back to what I was saying before...***

It’s the kind of traveling where it takes 6 hours to travel 100 km on a dirt road in the back of a pickup. It took us 4 days to go from the very far west, to the border with Vietnam. One night we got dropped off in a village, and had to just stay alert for the one bus to the next town that would (should or, "maybe", "yes", and "sometimes not"). be driving by between 10:00pm and 1:00am... It was a miracle, but somehow, tired, in the pitch dark we were able to hear it approaching and run in the road waving flashlights to get it to stop and pick us up.

Laos has been fantastic. Apart from somewhat difficult travel, it is a really fascinating country. More jungle than we've seen yet, really nice (and hilarious) people, markets with meat products like rat and dog head, and what a history with the US. We've seen lakes that are bomb craters. We went to caves where the government officials lived during the heavy bombing. You see bomb casings on the side of the road. It really is almost unbelievable. We met an older woman who spent much of her early 20's hiding from US soldiers in the jungle around her village.



Most people in the states are not aware of the fact that the US led a secret war in Laos, hence the "secret" part. Leading up to and continuing through the Vietnam war, the US and North Vietnam broke with the Geneva Accord, which recognized the neutrality of Laos and forbade the presence of all foreign military personnel. To evade the Geneva agreement, the US placed CIA agents in foreign aid posts in Laos and temporarily turned air force officers into civilian pilots. What followed was the most intensive bombing campaign in human history, leaving Laos as the most heavily bombed country in the world.

The US headquarters in Laos became the second-largest city in the country and one of the busiest airports in the world. The secret US air force based there dropped an average of one planeload of bombs every eight minutes, 24 hours a day for nine years! This cost US taxpayers around US$2 million per day. By the war's end the bombing amounted to approximately 1.9 million metric tons in all, equaling 10 tons per sq km, or over a half-ton for every man, woman and child living in Laos. To this day the CIA effort in Laos remains the largest and most expensive paramilitary operation ever conducted by the USA.

The war was so secret that the name of the country was banished from all official communications. To this day the US has never acknowledged its presence in Laos. What is really sick about this is the legacy that the US left in Laos. There are thought to be 10-30 million UXO (unexploded ordinance, or bombs that failed to detonate) left in Laos. Between the end of the war in 1975 and the beginning of clearance operations in 1994, more than 10,000 Lao villagers suffered injury or death from UXO. People are injured or killed during their everyday activities such as collecting firewood, herding cattle or hoeing in their fields and gardens. Still today more than 200 people die each year, and hundreds more are injured, most often children.

Interesting video clip on the secret war:
http://www.streamingculture.org/directory/launch/preferences?mediaid=841

Now for the happy stuff!

The highlight of Laos (and I might say of the whole trip) was a 3 day stay in a tree house 120 feet above the jungle floor. We had to use zip lines (an extensive cable network that you clip a harness to, step off a platform and go flying through the tops of the trees) to get in and out of the tree house and from place to place. What an experience. The longest cable was nearly 900 feet, hundreds of feet above the jungle floor! The tree house is a new project started by a French expat in an effort to preserve a large chunk of northern Laos forest. He was successful in protecting this forest and hopes to one day turn the tree house project over to the local Hmong (Lao hill tribe) villagers.

Another thing this guy did was rescued a baby gibbon (ape) from a local market who was being taught to do tricks for money. Now he (the ape) divides his time between cuddling with people in the tree house and swinging through the surrounding trees. He is free to go anytime he wants, but for now the 5 month old little ape prefers chillin' with the tourists. Hanging out with a baby gibbon (Willy) cuddled in your lap is, well, really amazing. And moving.

One day while Willy was lounging in Natalie's lap, this Austrian guy started showing Willy how to juggle. I thought to myself, silly man, apes can't juggle! Willy kept trying to grab the stones from him and would take them back to Natalie's lap. After doing this a few times Willy started trying to juggle himself! Everyone's jaws dropped to the floor (pretty impressive when the floor is 120 feet below!) We watched a 5 month old ape observe a human juggle, and then attempt to do it himself, one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed.

After tearing ourselves away from the tree house (at over 1,000,000 kip ($110) for 3 days, we couldn't afford to say forever) we moved east towards the Vietnam border. This is the trip that took days and days on grueling roads, often in the back of a pickup. The scenery was fantastic! Although much of the jungle has been clear cut for timber and slash and burn agriculture, it was still stunning.



Another really cool thing we did was visit the "mysterious" Plain of Jars. We met this really cool guy from San Francisco who was born in Guatemala. We talked non-stop for the entirety of our 8 hour bus ride. He set up a full day tour of the jars for the next day and we went along.

The Plain of Jars is an area that is littered with huge stone jars, some as high as 7-8 feet. No one knows what they were for or who made them. This mystery is one of the main attractions of the jars, and the guides have plenty of local stories of giants using them as drinking glasses for local whisky and the like. This was also the most heavily bombed areas during the “American war”. Many jars were destroyed and a lot of UXO is still around, this is the main reason the origin of the jars has remained a mystery… until now! Dun dun dun!!!

While tooling around looking at the jars we happened upon a UN archeologist and a guy from MAG (an NGO that removes UXO and landmines all over the world). A group of about 10-12 tourists circled around the dig site and asked tons of questions. The archeologist said that she is almost 100% sure that these jars were used for decomposing dead bodies (in most of Asia they believe the body has to be separated from the spirit by cremation or decomposition). She has the date between 1500 and 2500 years old and said that within 3 months all of the unanswered questions will be answered. Pretty cool to be there for that!

Then we ended up back at a noodle shop and sat with these two for an hour or so discussing jars, bombs, and America’s involvement in the area.

After all that we went to a beautiful old French colonial town called Luang Prabang. We were coming off such a high that it took us a few days to get used to normal boring travel! I spent 2 days just wanting to go home. After we shook that off we have been sort of dragging along and are now in the capital of Laos, Vientiane.

We are getting a bit tired of the traveling life and are going to move fast through the rest of Laos and Cambodia so that we can spend as much time sitting on beaches in Southern Thailand. It is hard to be here and skip stuff, but after awhile you just can’t absorb any more. Life is so tough!

**fyi- most of the stuff on the war is cut and pasted, in other words I straight plagiarized it (from very credible sources mind you).