Thursday 6 March 2014

Tour resumes.....Overnight I have no further health issues. For weeks, health problems have hung over this particular visit to the Far East with a number of questions that need to be addressed on my return to the UK. Yet today has barely started when I get a flavour of what will follow. Most of the day will be consumed by a straightforward trip to Muang Khoun but by the end of the day I'm struggling for words to write here.
For breakfast, I order a tuna sandwich and coffee. Will that get processed the way it should? I needn't worry; nothing sinister will happen today as I prepare for a motorbike trip to Muang Khoun some 30 kilometres away. This delayed, second of my planned tours takes in the old provincial capital which barely now exits. However, there is something I need to do first.
Mines Advisory Group (MAG).....Mines Advisory Group (MAG).....The MAG office is just around the corner. I don't know why I've left it so long before I called in here? The reception area is quite small, but there are a few exhibits of spent ordnance on display while on the walls are posted photographs and factual data relating to the work of this organization and the way it is changing the lives of the community. All straight forward, isn't it? A tragic event took place in this province which is recorded in the history books. I've visited war graves all over the Western Front. I've stood on top of the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazi concentration and extermination camp and even walked the killing fields outside Phnom Penh. These all transmit tragic in erasable memories and now this day is about to join this terrible list as I continue to make sense of what I'm reading. I came to this area looking for answers only to find more questions, for unlike those other sites I mentioned, for Laotian people it's as if the Vietnam War has never ended. Physical and mental scars are everywhere. It becomes so very hard to control emotions when dealing with human tragedy on a scale I never imagined and yet for local people it's all part of their daily lives in their struggle for survival. I have to take a break from here and head off on my tour.
Muang Khoun.....Based on the tourist guide booklet, there are a number of sites of interest in Mueng Khoun but when I reach the town and start working through the list I fail to appreciate the timeline of this city's historic past. Yes, there are a few relics that have survived, but they hardly register compared to the great religious sites in Thailand and Cambodia. Yet this is a town where your history book is the major source to feed the imagination outlining once important Buddhist art and French colonial architecture which dominate this town. All that is left now are scraps as reminders. Quite simply it's what isn't here that stirs the imagination. As usual, sites I visit will feature later when research time becomes available. It really hasn't consumed much time by visiting the sites in Muang Khoun as everything is within easy reach. As I head back I feel more connected to local people. A smile and a wave get an immediate reaction but tomorrow the boy who just waved to me might be tempted to move a bombie (cluster bomb) and lose his life. Yes, there are humans here and they deserve a better life than this.
Memorials.....Unlike the jars tour, I'm back in Phonsavan in plenty of time and take a rest. At 5pm it's still quite early, and I use this easier day to venture out of the town to visit two War Memorials, one Laotian and one Vietnamese, both located on hill tops. The view of the setting sun is an added bonus as I reach the Laotian Memorial. It consists of a decorated chedi in a walled garden, but I feel it could do with some TLC. It's just a short ride to the Vietnamese War Memorial and here the golden statues and friezes glinting in the setting sun have the completely opposite effect which is curious. More to the point it proves the Vietnamese were here in contravention of the 1962 Geneva Convention which attracted the wrath of the USA. It's this reaction that will soon dominate my thoughts.
Documentary.....I wish to return to the MAG information center in time for a documentary film being shown at 6.30 pm. I just make it in time and join a few other Westerners. The film will run for nearly an hour. While I'm still on tour I cannot spend too much time on a subject that is so complex and serious, and I will attempt to summarize it later, but the documentary is graphic enough to scatter a whole range of emotions. At the end of the film the audience leaves in silence. What has happened here is beyond comprehension. It's been a good while since I first decided to travel to Xieng Khouang with the intention of 'trying to make sense of it all'. Today I have the answer. It just doesn't make sense and never will! I'm just totally full of admiration for those young men and women who have volunteered to joint MAG and risk their lives every day to make homes, schools and farms safe for their family and friends. If ever there were a people who need a break in life you will find them here. I head back to my room in solemn thought still disinterested in food but with an appetite for getting something recorded in my blog. Tomorrow promises to be another busy day.
Did you know?....Between 1964 and 1973, 2 million tonnes of munitions were dropped in Laos according to US bombing records which are known to be incomplete. This equates to 2 tonnes for every man, woman and child making Laos the most bombed place in history. Most of the bombs dropped were cluster bombs (bombies). Bombies are anti-personal mines designed to maim and kill without discrimination. For various reasons 30% of bombies failed to explode. There are an estimated 80 million bombies, the size if tennis balls still undetected in Laos. Bombies are released from jets in canisters which then separate allowing the bombs to fall. The fluted shell of the bombie sets it into a spin which arms the bomb. Detonation takes place when spinning stops i.e. when it hits the ground.
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