Phonsavan has a very different feel to it than the other Laos towns we have visited. It has more of the mid-size industrial meets agricultural town about it. Lonely Planet describes it as the kind of town where you expect to see tumbleweeds rolling by. However, what Lonely Planet fails to mention is that you will actually see deactivated bombs and shell-casings all over. That's right. Today we learned all about The Secret War. During the American-Vietnam conflict, both American & Vietnam signed the Geneva accord, which declared Laos a neutral country. We both didn't respect that accord.
Americans dropped A LOT of bombs on Laos, particularly in this region. Define a lot? A lot equals two million tons of bombs. That's the equivalent to one bomb every eight minutes for nine years! That's more bombs than the Allied forces dropped on Germany & Japan combined in WWII. Sometimes we dropped them because we thought there were Vietkongs. Sometimes we dropped them just because we weren't able to drop them over Vietnam and didn't want to risk landing in our bases in Thailand with bombs on board. How crap are we? I had no idea!
We took it easy today and visited the MAG (Mines Advisory Group), which shows free documentaries on how the Laos are living with this legacy. I don't remember all of the stats, but this international group sweeps and clears roughly 500 cluster bombs (bombies) per week and 100,000 bombies per year from local fields. They anticipate it will still take decades before everything is cleared. The stats on the number of Laotians killed or wounded by bombies are equally as shocking.
The bombs and shell=casings around town are just a sample of the leftovers that have been cleared.
Learn more watching the documentary that we watched (clearly it's a slanted view, but it gives good information): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HPH7grVHR0.
We're so happy we came here so that we could learn more about something Americans rarely (if ever) are taught.
Americans dropped A LOT of bombs on Laos, particularly in this region. Define a lot? A lot equals two million tons of bombs. That's the equivalent to one bomb every eight minutes for nine years! That's more bombs than the Allied forces dropped on Germany & Japan combined in WWII. Sometimes we dropped them because we thought there were Vietkongs. Sometimes we dropped them just because we weren't able to drop them over Vietnam and didn't want to risk landing in our bases in Thailand with bombs on board. How crap are we? I had no idea!
We took it easy today and visited the MAG (Mines Advisory Group), which shows free documentaries on how the Laos are living with this legacy. I don't remember all of the stats, but this international group sweeps and clears roughly 500 cluster bombs (bombies) per week and 100,000 bombies per year from local fields. They anticipate it will still take decades before everything is cleared. The stats on the number of Laotians killed or wounded by bombies are equally as shocking.
The bombs and shell=casings around town are just a sample of the leftovers that have been cleared.
Learn more watching the documentary that we watched (clearly it's a slanted view, but it gives good information): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HPH7grVHR0.
We're so happy we came here so that we could learn more about something Americans rarely (if ever) are taught.
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