The shocking truth about Laos

The flight to Laos was really quick- we were so glad we picked it over the the other option which was a 30 hour bus journey! We landed at 6pm in Vientiane, probably one of the smallest and quietest capital cities we've ever visited. We stepped out of the airport to 36 Degree Centigrade heat(!) although little did we realise that the temperature would drop into the 20's in the next few days, accompanied by some rain.

There isn't much to do in Vientiane, so after seeing a few Temples (standard) we headed to a place called COPE, a centre set up to help those affected by unexploded bombs (UXO's) in Laos. We knew very little about this and had only heard about it from our Lonely Planet guide, but by the end of our visit we were pretty shocked by what had happened to this tiny country.

A little history lesson (info borrowed from various sites):

Between 1964 and 1973, the United States flew more than half a million bombing missions over the country in an attempt to block the flow of North Vietnamese arms and troops through Laos, despite the country being declared a neutral zone by the UN to avoid being drawn into the war in Vietnam.

As a result, Laos became the most heavily bombed country, per capita, in history. A planeload of bombs dropped every 8 minutes, 24 hours a day for 9 years on a neutral country!!

'Bombies', which are the bomblets or submunitions from cluster bombs are the most common cause of UXO incidents in Laos.  Roughly a third of all of the patients who are provided with prostheses through COPE are UXO survivors.

The failure rate of these bombs is thought to be as high as 30%, meaning that threat of unexploded bombs is still alive today: it is estimated that there are 300 new casualties from UXO incidents every year in Laos, nearly one everyday.

In 2010, 108 nations from around the world signed a treaty to ban the use of cluster bombs because of the devastating effect they have as well as their unreliability rate, however the US (along with Russia and China) have yet to sign it and continue to stockpile the bombs for possible future use.

We were pretty shocked at learning all of this, especially as we'd never heard about it before.

The next morning we had a typical Laos breakfast for backpackers: a baguette and an omelette. We left Vientiane and headed to crazy Vang Vien!