A Trip Down the River in a B52 Bomb-Case Canoe - It Can Only be Laos!

Yes, you've read it correctly - as part of our trip to the Homestay village this weekend, we travelled for 25 minutes each way by river, and back again this morning, in a 5-person canoe made from the casing of one of the thousands of B52 bombs which had been dropped by the Americans during the Vietnam war. This is one of hundreds of uses to which the Lao have put the still-deadly debris of what has become known as the 'Secret War' during that horrible time. An estimated 260 million tonnes of various kinds of bombs were dropped on Laos by the US - a plane-load every nine minutes for eight years, more than the total of bombs dropped during the whole of WW2! - in response to the Viet Minh funnelling massive amounts of war munitions down the Ho Chi Minh trail. And this carpet-bombing took place despite a 1954 Geneva Conference declaration of neutrality for Laos. Sadly, some 78 million tonnes failed to explode, and the consequences are still being felt in this country today. Doubtless we'll return to this subject when we eventually return to Vientiane, as we plan to visit the COPE National Rehabilitation Centre dedicated to supporting the victims.
Anyway, we'd set off from Vientiane, by air-conditioned private bus, at 9.00 on Saturday morning (16 Oct) for the supposedly 6-hour drive (including refreshment breaks) to the Hmong village of Hin Boun, planning to drive for another 12-14 hours by bus the following day, to Ninh Binh (not Ninbim, the quirky, cannabis-worshipping, Queensland village which was the birthplace of our friend, Margo, wife of Andy's ex-tree-surgery colleague, Ben Jackson). Hin Boun was to be the last Laos stopping-place before reaching the Laos-Vietnam border. We travelled along the Lao Highway - a sort-of dual carriageway on which our skillful driver skated gracefully around pot-holes, herds of cattle, buffalo and goats, stray dogs, pigs and chickens, as well as lorries, pick-ups, family-filled small motor-cycles, weird-looking tractors, and young children on push-bikes. We were told that we would stop roughly every two hours for toilet stops and/or refreshment stops. However, should anyone not be able to wait for the two-hour toilet break, we were to ask the driver to stop in order to 'shoot a rabbit' (males), or 'pick a flower' (females). How wonderfully euphamistic!
For the first time since we arrived in Indo-China, the weather was relatively cool (a comfortable 18-20 degrees) and drizzly;  for the most part, the weather has been in the low to mid thirties, and pretty sticky.   In fact, Jo declared it to be imported 'Manchester rain', rather than the usual tropical stuff - it was relentless, pissy, and grey-skied. For the most part, it's been in the low to mid 30s, fairly humid and sticky. In fact, one Swiss ex-pat we asked, suggested that Europeans never do get used to the heat and humidity; they merely get used to the sweat - and adapt their lifestyle accordingly, showering and changing several times a day.
At our lunch-stop, though, Nak, our tour leader, had a telephone message that the highway over the border in Vietnam was unpassable because of a land-slide due to unusually heavy rains this year. We therefore spent an additional hour at our roadside cafe while Nak, and Ghii (our Laos-based guide) tried to work out what best to do. While they were busy, however, there was the first (and, we hope, only!) near-mutiny in the group - mainly orchestrated by the only other 'mature' British female - albeit a mere 50-year-old. This character had already declared herself unhappy with the idea of a primitave homestay, and with the duration of the bus journey on the two days - even though these were both made clear in the Trip Notes to which we had all signed up. It was, by now, raining quite heavily, and she did her best to whip the group up into returning immediately to the comfort of the 'Travelodge' in Vientiane, despite the fact that the homestay itself was well inside the Laos border. In the event, however, the tour leader declared that we would continue on to the homestay, but, instead of travelling on to Vietnam by road, would return to Vientiane the next day, to take the plane direct to Hanoi.
In the event, because of these delays, we turned up at the 'B52 river-crossing' only shortly before sunset (around 5.30 pm). By the time we arrived at the, admittedly scarily rudimentary, village homestay, the rain was heavy and persistent. We therefore disembarked our B52s in pouring rain, up a very muddy and slippery riverbank (two of the group fell over and got covered in red mud), and went straight to the wooden house, perched on high stilts accessible only by a wooden-planked staircase, without really seeing any of the villagers, except for a brave few looking out at us from their shacks through the dying light and rain. The family house in which our half of the group were staying had one large family room at the top of the stairs, with no furniture to speak of. There were various bits of linoleum covering the floor - obviously lots of off-cuts from different patterns and styles, and loads of what looked to be bedding rolls in the rafters. There were two other 'rooms' partitioned off by curtaining, in which the family members (grandmother, mother, father, and two young girls) were squashed up to spend the night - they usually use the family room which was given over to us, apparently. Through a doorway was a fairly large, but very spartan kitchen, with a small log-fire in the middle of it (we didn't actually go in, as they were busy cooking our meal, and it was difficult to see how this fire didn't actually burn down the whole house, built of wood as it is!).   Apart from a number of pots and pans hanging around the walls, and a few food-sacks in one corner, there was nothing else in the room. Underneath the house was a muddy, albeit concreted area which stored several sacks of rice on a huge pallet, fenced off from the chickens and rooster which were skittering about under there, a couple of small motor-bikes, loads of bits of iron, some farming-looking implements, and two large weaving looms - on both of which the women of the family had made a start on some stunningly intricate patterns in threads of pinks, gold, yellow, blue and purple silk. These seemed really out of place in this muddy/dusty/primitive-looking location. A few feet away from the house, in amongst some bushes and trees, was a walled squat-toilet for the use of all of us - family and visitors alike. There was a large barrel of water beside the squat toilet, in which floated some very large, dead beetles, and a huge plastic ladle. This ladle was to be used to scoop up water to flush the squat toilet after use. The only washing facility was an outdoor cold tap, shared by all the houses in the village, just across from the house in which we were staying.   People using this 'en-suite', which none of us did, would cover themselves in a sarong (women), or shorts (men) to perform their very public ablutions.   Apart from the beautiful weaving already mentioned, the most incongruous thing of all in this tiny village were several HUGE satellite dishes - which would not look out of place in Joderell Bank!   Most of the houses, including 'ours', had TV and hi-fi, and one of the most bizarre memories I have is seeing the grandmother in our house, looking like something out of a biblical movie scene, flicking through the buttons on the TV remote whilst we were eating our breakfast.   We were told that this particular Hmong village is amongst the wealthiest, partly because of the income from the homestay visitors, but also because most of the men there nowadays work on a huge hydro-electric dam nearby.   (Incidentally, we also understand that there remain some ethnic tensions between the majority Lao population and the Hmong tribes, the Hmong having been recruited by the Americans during the Vietnam war to provide a 'home-grown' resistance movement to Communist sympathy, arming a crack-force of 10,000 Hmong warriors, naturally suspicious of communism and eager to trade their opium and courage for guns and money.)

After a fairly uncomfortable night for most of our group, sleeping on thin bedding rolls under blood-stained mosquito-nets (though Andy and I, to the annoyance of the others, slept well), despite this unremittingly bleak description of the village, we both found it fascinating and great fun - and the food was fab!  It's also a shame that the weather conditions and the late arrival prevented more socialising with the villagers, 'cos we got the impression that they are a very friendly and hospitable people.

After a superb breakfast of herby omelettes and banana muffins, we set off back down-river in our B52s, and thence the long journey back to Vientiane.   This supposedly 6-hour trip was, however, delayed by at least 2 hours by a jack-knifed lorry that completely blocked the very windy road, about an hour's journey from the village.   Still, most of the group - and the dozens of other travellers in other vehicles held up by the scene - were kept highly entertained for the duration as they watched a huge recovery vehicle slowly inch the jack-knifed lorry out of the ditch into which the cab had toppled.   Fortunately, no-one, not even the driver, had been injured in the event.  

So, we finally returned to our 'travelodge' in Vientiane early on Sunday evening, having left the village at 8 in the morning.   We were all pretty bushed by then, so we wandered into town to get a meal, and then back to the hotel for an early night.  More great Lao street food by the banks of the Mekong first, though!

B52 Bomb-Case Canoes

On the Road to Hin Boun

Around The Hmong Village of Hin Boun

Barbara Shares Jo's Fruit with Village Elders

Roadside Buddhist Shrine

Jack-knifed Lorry