Two sides of a traveller’s tale

A 25-seater minibus all to ourselves - very unusual compared to the cramped "chicken buses"!
 

Next stop in Laos, Vang Vieng. A small, rural town very much on the farang (tourist) trail all because of three things – large tyres’ inner tubes, a fast flowing river and an even faster flow of beer. “I tubed the Vang Vieng” vests are standard attire for any 18 year old on a gap year in Asia. We hopped into our tubes in gorgeous sunshine, which literally turned to torrential rain after three minutes in the river (the rainy season has well and truly arrived in Asia). We jumped out at the second of about 15 bars along the short stretch of river to let the rain pass and of course have our first beer of the day. Clearly some take more of a devoted approach to the beer keg than others and by bar two there were already plenty of people who probably couldn’t remember the rest of the day.

One day in Vang Vieng was enough and we continued to the capital Vientiane. By far the smallest capital city we’ve encountered so far, our one day in the “city” was ample and we spent the afternoon at the COPE centre on the outskirts of town. COPE Laos is an organisation which helps treat and provide training for the 12,000+ victims of UXO (unexploded bombs) as a result of the American war with Vietnam. According to information at the centre around 78 million(!) of the 260 million(!!!) bombs which were dropped across Laos by the Americans, trying to destroy the vital Ho Chi Minh trail, failed to explode and therefore have left the Laos countryside literally littered with millions upon millions of lethal devices.

A mother and child statue made from fragments of bombs

 

A close-up of a "bombie" filled with ball bearings

It was an extremely moving afternoon, not only because we learnt about something which both felt very ignorant to despite it still having a huge effect on the people of Laos, particularly children playing in fields around their villages, decades after a war which their country shouldn't even have been a part of. The work which the charity carries out is both incredibly sad yet very inspiring at the same time. I was reduced to tears after watching a documentary shown, reading about and listening to some of the real horrors which local people have faced, and will continue to face. Not only do the UXO spread across the countryside mean that people remain poor and unable to farm the land but it is estimated that if the clearance of UXO continues at the rate it is currently going it will take another 100 years before Laos is safe. Horribly ironically one way in which villagers are now trying to make a living is through the scrap metal trade which means that children are actually quite excited to find the metre-long shells of bomb carriers as these will provide money for their impoverished families - albeit less than a pound a shell - and obviously the bomb carriers aren’t always empty. We’ve added the YouTube links below for the two parts of the documentary that we watched so if you are reading this and have time to spare then definitely have a look.

Heading further south we, along with a couple of Dutch guys, rented a motorbike to get off the beaten track and explore the Bolaven Plateau which is predominantly a farming region with a couple of tea and coffee plantations. With this in mind, South East Asia to me will be remembered as a place with rolling countryside (though not in the British sense!), humble villages dotted along the roadsides definitely giving a new meaning to the term “free-range” with pigs and piglets, cows, chickens and ducks all taking part in the daily going-ons. The friendliness of the locals is again and again witnessed here with children at every house grinning at us and waving madly shouting “Saba-dee” meaning hello.

 Tropical gardens at the coffee plantation

 Our bedroom on wheels

An example of how recovered bomb carriers are used in villages

Back in the main town of Pakse we treated ourselves at an Indian restaurant with a very amiable owner who clearly knew an English person when he saw one – he pre-empted my order of chicken tikka massala and garlic naan - and for the first time in what feels like a very long time we felt happily full!

From Pakse we bussed it to the southern tip of the country bordering Cambodia and spent a couple of days chilling and doing nothing on one of the “Four Thousand Islands”. All this whistle-stopping, with Cambodia and Vietnam still to come, had taken it out of us!