2/16–Luang Prabang UXO morning

Last night’s sleep was far better than our first night, and we’ve come to realize that the increased traffic noise was from Chinese New Years.  The 14th was New Year’s Eve, and apparently a lot of folks were out partying until the wee hours of the morning.  Last night, fortunately, that was not the case and are much more rested than we were yesterday.  After another wonderful, if not chilly, breakfast on the patio, where I said I would just have fruit, and they brought me this huge plate of fruit instead of the little “welcome” fruit plate we had yesterday, we repair back to our balcony to map out our day.

We’ve decided to change plans at the last minute. We had originally planned either go to the waterfall outside of town, or do the wat walk today – but we realized that the UXO Visitors’ Center isn’t open on the weekends, so if we want to visit, it must be today.  We also want to take the guided tour of the Traditional Arts & Ethnology Center (TEAC) at 3pm, so staying in town today makes the most sense.  We pack the backpack with kleenex and water, and begin the 1 1/4 mile trek over to UXO. 

It’s a beautiful day for a walk, as it is really quite cool in the mornings (about 55 degrees F).  It will heat up as the day goes on, and reach the mid 90’s, but then cool back down in the evenings again, making our hotel balcony and excellent place to spend the late evenings after dinner.  Today, we are actually retracing our steps from last night, only in the daylight, which is much preferable and gives us a chance to really explore where we were along with a completely different area of town.  We of course pass by the Bamboo bridge again…

…and the Brother House, as we continue on our route through the more commercial part of town with loads of guest houses and little cafes and restaurants on the main roads.  As we get further away from the Historic district, the complexion changes to a more local vibe, more convenience and specialty stores (think hardware, fabric, juice stands, etc.) and large streets filled with traffic.  We navigate our way around traffic circles and Wats, and get to watch a couple of wedding parties drive by in flower bedecked cars and music blaring from the following vehicles.  Guess today is a lucky day to get married since we’ve seen 2 parades so far – and it is only mid-morning on a Friday.

Arriving at the UXO Visitors’ Center you are greeted by a display of Ordnance - cluster bombs, bomb shell fragments and bombies (those little bombs held inside a cluster bomb shell) - all strategically placed around the entry courtyard to sort of prepare you for the information you will find inside.

The center itself is fairly small, consisting of one large room with various displays, posters, explanations and of course lots of inert bombs and fragments.  Another small room to the side is a video room where they show two movies that chronicle a few of the Laotians affected by unexploded ordnance as well as efforts to contain the damage.  The videos are educational, if not a horrific real life depiction of the damage UXO can inflict, with English subtitles, that leave you feeling slightly queasy about the part America played in all this.  According to their literature, Laos was the most heavily  bombed country in the world.  Over 260 million bombies were dropped over Laos between 1964 and 1973, and about 78 million of those failed to explode. The casualty numbers from these UXO are mind-boggling:  1 person is killed almost every day from UXO, 40% of UXO casualties in a 7 year period between 1999 and 2006 were caused by cluster bombs, and UXO Lao, even with all their focused attention and support has only cleared .47%, or 395,000 bombies, of all bombies in the country. That’s frighteningly horrific.

After watching the video, we wander through the excellently prepared and presented displays of facts, figures and UXO.  While it is deeply disturbing to see all this as tourists or voyeurs, we do feel good about the donations we can make to the organization to keep clearing the bombies, and the raised  awareness the foundation is creating by putting all this ordnance on display – not to mention their efforts for awareness and precaution in the villages most affected by UXO.

We support the foundation with a donation, and by purchasing a t-shirt. We also ask if we should buy the UXO trinkets from the market vendors, since we’d read somewhere it wasn’t a good idea because it reinforces dangerous behaviors in collecting UXO. The lady managing the center said it wasn’t a problem buying it from vendors, it supports their particular village, which made us feel better about any impending purchase we might consider. 

It’s not even 11am when we leave the center, so we back track a bit to visit the little park with the Monument to President Souphanouvong, the first president of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. It’s a lovely little green space with the giant iron statue claiming prominence smack dab in the middle of the park.

That little diversion done, we head back into town on a different route so we can see more of the city.  Here again, we are in more local areas, until we get close to the historic areas.  Our route takes us right through the Dara Market, the largest market in town. We wander through there a bit, but don’t really find anything we are dying for or for which we want to bargain. But we do find a large, modern grocery store at the back of the market and manage to stock up on more Kleenex (really, really cheap), cough drops, beer and snacks. 

We scout out the TEAC location, which is also on our way back into town, then walk through the corner market located at the start of the night market street, but which is in operation all day long.  Ed spots a cute little dress there, and we do finally decide to bargain out a purchase. We hit the Tourist info center just before it closes for a map (not that we really need one, but I want to see the details of the town), look over the “Do’s and Don’ts” poster (apparently there are lots of problems here with people disrespecting the Laotian culture and mores.  Then its off to find a spot to eat.  We stumble on the oldest family run restaurant in Luang Prabang – The Yongkhoune Restaurant – located in one of the shophouses on Sisavangvong Road.    

The food is wonderful, totally traditional and very tasty.  I end up with pork and cashew nuts (which is my standard fall back, although it is normally chicken) and Ed chooses the Or Lam (which is supposed to be a thick stew, but this version is a rather thinner broth type version).  They are both very good and tasty – and coupled with the entertainment of this precious little girl all dressed up in her New Year’s finery who is visiting all the tables in her grandmother’s (the restaurant owner) arms – it’s a perfect midday respite.